They all left in 2 separate cars, planning on leaving at different times after the party. Rachel went in a car with Klaus and Rebekah.
They arrived just in time to see Damon coming down the stairs freshly showered and changed in a silk dark green button up shirt and a black pair of pants. He had a Santa hat on.
"Ha, let me guess, you and Rebekah are already changed because you sang to Klaus." Damon exclaimed when they came in the room.
"Yep! And guess what, he loved it!" Rachel replied, kissing her father as she dragged Rebekah further into the house.
"Really? You LOVED it?" Damon whispered to Klaus.
"Had it been anyone else than Rachel and Rebekah, they would have been long dead!" Klaus replied, whispering also with humour.
.
While Rachel and Damon were enjoying their evening with the Mickealson's, Stefan was having second thoughts. He would like to see his brother and his niece, to make peace with them, but he didn't want to lose Elena and the struggle was tiring him. He couldn't deny that she had strong opinions about this and he didn't know what to do.
"You could always leave and join them now... They wouldn't mind, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to have you." Alaric told Stefan as they were both in the kitchen, getting more ice and more appetizers.
"If I leave, Elena will know where I'm going and I'd lose her right away... I can't lose her, I love her too much." Stefan replied, shaking his head.
"If seeing the last 2 members of your family is enough for you to lose her, then maybe she doesn't love you as much as you love her..." Alaric said, knowing that Damon was suffering from this and was hiding it as well as he could.
At that moment, Jeremy entered the room with his empty glass, ready to refill it.
"She's just hurt because of the whole Klaus thing. How can Damon let his daughter date Klaus I'll never know..."
"Have you seen Klaus since he got with Rachel?" Jeremy asked the vampire.
"No, why would I seek him out? I think he's done enough." Stefan replied quickly.
"Well, if you had you'd have seen just how much he has changed. He's actually a nice guy." Jeremy replied.
"The old Klaus would have had you, Elena and everyone involved with Mickeal, Esther and Katherine killed. He didn't even yell at you guys. He forgave you, because he's with Rachel." Alaric added.
"Also you should know that Rachel is really sad about the situation and when Rachel is sad, Klaus, Rebekah and Sage get super angry... Rebekah is doubly angry because she knows that Damon is sad too." Jeremy added as he finished refilling his glass before he turned around and left the room.
"I...I'll think about it." Stefan said, shaking his head one last time before he went back to sit by Elena's side, followed by Alaric.
"Here you are Stefan, you two were there for quite some time. What happened?" She asked Stefan.
"We were just talking about Stefan leaving the party early to celebrate a little with Damon and Rachel." Alaric said before Stefan could lie to her.
"What? Why would you do this?" Elena shrieked.
"They're his only family Elena, he should spend some time with them." Jenna tried to reason with her niece.
"I'm his only family now! They don't deserve him since they're sleeping with the enemy." Elena yelled.
"Hey, watch your tone with me Elena! I'm not against grounding you!" Jenna replied.
"Stefan, you're not going are you?" Elena asked him.
"I don't know... Maybe... I do miss them..." Stefan replied.
"What about me?" Elena asked.
"What about you? This has nothing got do with you Elena! Gosh, are you that power crazy that you can't even let your boyfriend spend some time with his family?" Jeremy said, annoyed by his sister and her attitude.
"Oh, you don't get a say in anything Jeremy, not when your best friend is Kol!" Elena spat at him.
"Listen! Stop this! I'll go later to see my brother and Rachel if I want to. It's my decision, not any of yours." Stefan replied before Jenna changed the subject to their favorite Christmas memories.
.
The evening was pretty joyous at the Salvatore Boarding house.
They were eating, singing, joking, laughing and having a really good time all together, as one big family. Rachel felt in her heart that the only thing missing was Stefan to be there also but she shook the thought out of her head, not wanting to bring everyone's mood down. Late in the evening, they had a phone call from Santana who was letting them know that everything was fine in Lima and Rachel called Noah, wanting some news. She noticed that while she was on the phone with Puck, Klaus looked kind of jealous but she made sure the hybrid knew that they were just friends and that nothing ever happened or would happen between them. Puck was only her friend, Klaus had nothing to be afraid of, he wasn't going to loose her anytime soon.
Around midnight, the time to exchange gifts came and so they all sat around the tree with their gifts in front of them, ready to hand them out.
It took them a while but eventually they all had everyone's gift in front of them.
Books, clothes, jewelry, new technology, gift certificates... They all had a lot of things.
Rachel had gotten her aunt Sage a necklace with a picture of the two of them on one side and of her and Finn on the other one. The necklace had the power to guide her back to Finn if they ever got separated.
She got Finn a new watch where she added something so that he could use it as a compass to point him towards Sage, in case they ever got separated. Of course they loved it. On the back of the watch, Finn noticed that there was a note engraved "To uncle Finn, with love, Rachel."
Rachel had never gotten the occasion to get close to Elijah so she simply got him a book titled "Family values for dummies" and it made everyone laugh very hard. He understood with this gift that she was still mad at him for betraying his word during the curse breaking also informed him that the book was bewitched to open automatically to the chapter he needed the most. When the book suddenly opened, Elijah closed it really fast, hiding from everyone what this particular chapter was about.
Rachel had gotten Kol a new IPod with a magical extension so that he could have infinite space on it to store his favourite music. It wasn't very personal but he loved it anyway.
When it came to Rebekah, Rachel gave her a complete jewellery set of Lapiz lazuli so that she could change it once in a while, along with a special bracelet just like the one her father had to look older. Rebekah was very happy of course, she took it as a sign from Rachel that she didn't mind her staying with her father forever. They would be able to 'grow old' together and have an almost normal human life everywhere they went.
When it came to Klaus, Rachel gave him a special compass.
"I enchanted it. It will be able to answer by yes or no 20 questions of your choice. It's very hard to do and I won't be able to do it all the time, but I figured it was the best thing to give the man who already had everything and has enough money to buy what he doesn't have." Rachel explained before Klaus thanked her with a big tender kiss.
As soon as she had explained to him how it worked, Klaus took it and silently asked the compass a question, not telling anyone what it was. The compass answered yes and it brought a great smile on his face.
"So, what did you ask? Yes to what question?" Rebekah asked, curious.
"I...It doesn't matter." Klaus relied blushing.
"Something tells me it has to do with Rachel." Kol joked.
Klaus ignored him, determined not to tell anyone that he had asked the compass if Rachel would be by his side forever.
"I... I have something else for you Klaus... here... I know it looks like a normal lamp but I also enchanted it. If you plug it in and someone in the room tells a lie, it will light up. The intensity of the light depends on the intensity of the lie." She explained to her boyfriend.
"Thanks Love, that's two great gifts you gave me here." He replied, kissing her once more and keeping her on his lap.
Then Rachel gave her gift to her father. It was a very big box and when he opened it, he saw that it was a selection of very old and very expensive Bourbon Whiskey. All of them sorts he loved. He felt proud at the thought that his daughter knew him so well.
"What's the last box for?" Kol asked her as Klaus was about to start handing out his own gifts.
"Oh...that was in case Uncle Stefan decided to come... It's not much... Just an empty journal that I bewitched so he could write as much as he wanted in it, it would store it all in... He could write a thousand pages, even if only the last few ones are showing, the summary at the beginning would allow him to go back to the first page... I figured he would like it..." She explained.
"I'm sure he would have loved it Princess. It doesn't matter if he doesn't come, you can always go to him and give it to him." Damon said.
"No, I'll just leave it in his room if he doesn't come. He'll have it when he decides to behave!" Rachel decided before nodding to Klaus so he could start handing out his own presents.
Klaus had given to Rachel a promise ring, where he had engraved "Together, Always and Forever. Love, Klaus". Of course she had loved it a great deal and she was now wearing it proudly on her right hand. She had been about to put it on her left hand but one look at her father changed her mind. He wasn't ready for this. She didn't want him to start growing grey hair now did she?
I hope you liked this one!
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Lorelei Candice Black