AN: Thank you so much for reviewing and for adding my story to your favorites and alerts. You are amazing.

So I have to clear something up because I guess I was not able to get it across right in the story. Katherine is in fact dead. Mason Northwood is the person who hired Chris Tanner to spy on Damon and put drugs in the food.

Tyler Lockwood read a text sent by Mason to Tanner talking about Katherine but Tanner would not have saved Mason's name on his phone in case someone got their hands on it.

Anyway, I hope that clears up the confusion and please if you still think something is weird or doesn't add up then tell me and I'll try to explain and if it's a mistake on my part then I can fix it.

Thank you for your time and enjoy,

Mydarkside975

Chapter 25: White Picket Fence

Damon

Two and a half years ago:

He was sitting on the edge of their bed staring at the little black box perched on his right knee. This was not the first time either. He had done this countless times before, sitting there and staring. Afterwards, he would put it in the back of the drawer of his bedside table and forget about it until next time.

He had to do it. She was pregnant with his kid. Not that, that was the only reason. He loved her and he bought it long before, she became pregnant. There was just this… something holding him back from popping that question.

But he had to do it sooner or later, it had to happen so why not do it now? Yes, he should just get it over with.

He grabbed the box and stood up taking two steps towards the door before he stopped. He looked at the box for one more moment. This was it. It was now or never.

He resumed walking to the door and when he opened it, he heard her calling his name from downstairs. She sounded like she was in a good mood, good… perfect.

He made his way down the stairs and found her sitting in the den, her legs stretched on the couch. She looked up when she heard him coming and gave him that mischievous look that told him she was up to something. She curled her index finger and made a beckoning motion to get him closer. He sighed inaudibly and walked closer. Now he definitely knew what she was up to. The box in his left hand was still out of her sight and in a split second decision; he stuck it underneath the couch as he kneeled in front of her and caught her lips in a heated kiss.

"What was that?" she asked when he let her go to take a breath.

"Just needed to kiss my beautiful girlfriend," he said smirking and turning up the charm.

She took her manicured fingers to his face and dragged the nail of her index finger along his jaw.

"My sweet, sweet Damon…" Her voice was husky and seductive. The nail of her thumb landed on his lower lip and pressed down. She kept adding pressure as she stared at his lips and licked her own. She pierced the skin and a drop of blood trickled down his chin.

He kept staring at her, his face void of any emotion. She tugged on his face and put her lips right next to his ear before she spoke. "You know that you're not supposed to kiss someone without their permission but you did it anyway. That was bad, Damon. You know what happens to bad boys?" She lowered her voice to a whisper only meant for his ears. "They get punished."

Xxx

She was in a very bad mood that day and she made sure to let him know that fact. She screamed at people including him for any little thing and if she did not find anything to be mad about, she just made something up. She nearly scared the life out of their gardener because he brought the wrong kind of flowers in the morning. The poor guy was so embarrassed, that his face turned purple. Damon had to go talk to him afterwards and apologize for her mood swings. After all, she was the one who told the guy to bring those flowers.

When Kat was in a bad mood, it was in everyone's best interest to stay solemn and refrain from any displays of happiness. He was however too excited to let her bring him down. Today, they had an appointment at her obstetrician to do an ultrasound. It was not their first time but this time, they might get to know more like the sex of the baby.

He drove them to the clinic and while his head was buzzing with excitement, the car was quiet. The tension was coming off her in waves. She hated the regular pregnancy checkups, said she felt like a breeding-machine instead of a human being.

When they got to the clinic, he made sure to park the car as close to the entrance as possible. He hurried to open her door for her and he helped her out of the car.

She was not showing that much yet and she made sure to wear loose clothes to hide the subtle roundedness of her stomach, he knew was there. He adored that change, that little evidence of the little human being growing inside her that was part him and part her.

They were in the exam room and the doctor just squirted some gel on her stomach before he took the wand to her stomach. He moved it around a bit and then there it was; the rhythmic sound of a beating heart. It was fast. It filled the room and Damon could not keep a little smile from forming on his face. He looked at her but she had her eyes firmly shut. She refused to look at the screen where the black and white blurriness settled to make way for the picture of a tiny human being. He could clearly see the head, the legs and teeny tiny arms.

The doctor pointed to the screen. "You see that? That's a baby boy," he said and now Damon was full on beaming. The doctor excused himself to give them a moment and to print out some pictures for them.

Damon turned to Kat and the look on her face wiped the smile right off of his. There was nothing there. Not a single emotion was showing on her face. She looked like she was bored, like what they just experienced was nothing but an annoyance to her, something she just wanted to get over with.

In that moment, he felt it… his love for her… wavering.

Xxx

A loud wail shook him to the core and filled his heart with the most unprecedented joy. After months of pain, this very loud little creature was finally out into the world. A nurse with a kind face lined with the evidence of a lifetime of smiles held the little bundle of fabric with a tiny human being inside out to him.

"I… I don't know…" His voice was small and weak.

"It's okay, honey. Just support his head like that." She showed him where to put his arms as he held onto the little bundle and stared into the face of… his son.

Kat was not awake yet after the C-section, she had chosen to get instead of regular vaginal birth. She was asleep during the whole thing.

He was the one who got to hold their son for the first time. He got to feel his little fingers wrap around his index finger and when he opened his eyes for a second, he saw their color; brown like his mother's.

Xxx

He smelled smoke, from a cigarette. He kept telling her not to smoke in the house but she never listened. He found her in the kitchen, standing by the window and staring into space with a lit cigarette between her manicured fingers. She did not notice him there until he reached her hand and plucked the cigarette form between her fingers.

"What the hell?!"

He put it out against the heel of his boot and threw it into the trash all the while ignoring a fuming Kat. She did not give up though. She fished another cigarette from the full pack she had in her hand and put it between her lips. Before she could light it, he was in front of her. He picked the cigarette right from between her lips, crushed it in his hands and stared at her. Spelled on his face was a dare to try it again.

"What is wrong with you?" She screamed and stomped her foot like the little brat she was.

"I told you not to smoke inside," he said in a forced calm tone as he tried to contain his temper.

"Come on, Damon. It's not like I'm in his room. I'm in the kitchen, on the opposite side of the house for heaven's sake. Give me a break already."

"You're not even supposed to smoke. He can still smell it on your clothes and in your hair."

"Come here and suffocate me, why don't you? He's my son too, you know."

"Well it's a good thing that you still remember that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you barely even touch him anymore since you stopped breastfeeding. He's three months old, he needs you."

"I'm not a damn cow and I'm right here. It's not like I ever leave this godforsaken house."

"Yeah, you're not much of anything anymore, never mind a mother," he said and registered the shocked expression on her face. That certainly shut her up for a second, enough for him to get out of there.

If she wanted to leave, she could. He was not keeping her there and he already did everything he could for Dan. Yes, their son needed a mother but it was not like she fulfilled her motherly duties towards him. If anything, she was doing the opposite. She smoked in the house where their possibly asthmatic son was. When he cried, she had no idea what to do to make him stop. She stopped breastfeeding after only two months because she thought breastfeeding ruined the shape of her breasts and because it felt 'weird'.

God, she made him so angry.

He needed to check on Dan. He never liked to leave him alone for too long. He always made sure to check on him regularly and listen to his breathing for a moment just to make sure that everything was alright. Sometimes he would find him wheezing and heaving for his breath, in which case he would take him outside, because the doctors thought cool air was good for his airways.

Xxx

"You have to shake the inhaler then attach it like that," The doctor showed him how to put the inhaler into the end of the spacer. "Now you put the mask over his nose and mouth, push down on the inhaler once and then let him breathe into the mask about six times. Do you want to try?"

The doctor held out the spacer and the inhaler out to him. Damon moved Dan onto his left leg so he had his right hand free. He took the inhaler and spacer and did what the doctor showed him before he placed the mask over Dan's nose. He did not like that at all. He started pushing it away and struggling to get free. His breathing got even worse and his wheezing was loud because he was straining himself.

"Come on, Dan. It's okay. This will make you feel better," Damon tried to calm him down but he just refused to stay still.

"Maybe you have to hold his hands down," the doctor suggested and he had to agree with him even though he hated the idea.

Damon held his sons hands down with his left hand and placed the mask on his face again. This time around, Dan did not struggle as much. He was probably getting too tired. Damon counted six breaths before he took the mask off again.

Both he and the doctor listened to Dan's breathing and tried to determine if the medicine had helped. The retractions in his neck were not as pronounced as before but there it was the unmistakable, high-pitched whistling sound he made with every inhale.

The doctor thought they should try another time so they did and thankfully, his breathing got better. Now they had to wait a couple of hours for observation before they could go home.

So yeah, at eleven months, they finally diagnosed Dan with asthma. It was a good thing actually because now they had something to treat.

Over the past couple of months, Damon could not count how many times he had been in and out of the hospital with Dan. When he would check on him in his room, mostly at night and find him wheezing and clearly struggling for breath, he would try the usual. He would take him outside in the cool air or put him in the car and drive around with the windows open. But when none of that worked, he would take him to the hospital where they gave him oxygen and sometimes adrenaline if his breathing was too fast and his saturation was dropping.

They had tried asthma medicine before but it did not work, at least before it did not. This time though it worked and now they had this spacer and an inhaler, they could use at home. Really, it was an amazing thing.

Damon thought he would keep sleeping in Dan's room for now just to make sure everything was fine during the night. If he did not, he knew he would not be able to sleep. He would, to Kat's annoyance keep going back and forth between their room and Dan's all night. He had already been sleeping in Dan's room for the last six months at least and it was good for everybody. He got to have his peace of mind and Kat got her beauty sleep.

Xxx

He turned off the engine and got out of the car closing his door as quietly as possible. He opened the door to the backseat and reached inside retrieving a sleeping Dan inside his carrier. He had to go through so much last night and this morning. He was exhausted and was finally able to fall asleep on the drive home.

Damon thought Kat might be in their room or outside in the garden because he did not find anyone on his way to Dan's room which was kind of strange this early in the afternoon. Usually, there would be someone cleaning or dusting and there would be sounds from the kitchen telling him that lunch was on the way. Today, everything was quiet and not a soul was in sight. This eerie silence made him wonder, not for the first time, why they kept living in this house. It was too damn big for three people.

When he reached Dan's room, he took him carefully out of his carrier and placed him in his crib. He got the baby monitor and put it right next to Dan's head so it could pick up the sounds of his breathing. It was not very efficient but better than nothing.

He made sure to leave the door ajar before he left to go change out of his clothes from the night before and if Kat was there, he could leave the monitor with her and go take a quick shower.

Dan started showing symptoms an hour or two after he fell asleep the night before and when sitting outside did not work, Damon drove them to the hospital. They gave him oxygen to help him through the night but in the morning, the doctor thought they could give the asthma medication another try.

After spending the whole night at the hospital worried out of his mind, Damon felt like he could sleep for a week.

He reached their bedroom door and had his hand on the doorknob about to turn it, when he heard it. His mind was spinning trying to interpret what he had just heard with no avail. He had to see.

He turned the knob and opened the door to see exactly what his confused mind was trying to tell him, he would see.

She was in bed… naked… with the gardener, Mason Northwood.

Elena

She could not even remember what she was doing when he called. She was on full alarm the moment she heard the sound of his voice on the other end of the phone.

Agony; that was the word she thought of when she picked up the phone and heard his voice. He sounded like he was suffocating and knowing what she knew now; she thought he probably was suffocating in his own memories.

He called her asking for help. He did not say it in so many words but she knew. She heard the plea in the tone of his voice.

She tried to reassure him on the phone. She told him to hang in there and that she was on her way.

Half an hour later, she was in the elevator on her way up to his apartment. She did not even recall how she made it there this fast. One thought kept haunting her forcing her to move as fast as she could. He sounded like he could hurt himself or just as bad, he could turn to his old ways. He could try to shut off the pain and numb himself.

The elevator finally arrived and the doors opened into his hallway. She stepped out and made for the living room praying that she was not too late.

When she walked into the living room, she immediately spotted him. That room was always in such order that anything out-of-place would jump into the eyes right away.

He was sitting on the ground, his back against the side of the couch with his head in his arms. One of the cushions from the couch was thrown across the room and underneath it was apparently his emergency stash where three sealed whisky bottles were lined carefully. She noticed one was missing and her heart jumped inside her chest when she found it on the floor next to him… unopened.

"I didn't do it," his muffled voice sounded and she let out a breath, she did not know she was holding.

AN: Phew...yeah this was a heavy chapter. The Dan parts were honestly the worst to write. Where they hard for you to read?

This chapter held a lot of answers too. Where they as you expected or would you have liked something to happen differently?

I know there was not that much Delena in this chapter but we as well as Damon had to get through the Katherine and Dan parts to move on with the story.

Love you all and have a nice week,

Mydarkside975