Goodness! I PROMISE I didn't mean to go so long between updates! The holidays are so busy with festivities and family that I haven't had much time to sit down and write/edit. But here we go - Christmas and an update!

THANK YOU for your reactions to the last two chapters! It's funny how when you write a story, the characters and the storyline take on a mind of their own. I actually had envisioned Damon finding out in a very different way and reaching far worse, but as I've been writing, the innocent breakfast scene just made sense.

I'll quit babbling and let you read. Merry Christmas!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Vampire Diaries.

He would start the Daytona 500 fifteenth.

He did it. He had qualified. And, all things considered, he had qualified well.

More than that, he had powered through the day without giving anything away. He had finished breakfast without incident and managed to keep up appearances. He had excused himself quickly, not really missed thanks to Caroline's poor cover up story about her pregnancy, and had gone back to his motor home, to reconcile what deep down, he knew all along.

After deciding on a course of action, he got dressed, made his press rounds, and then checked out of everything except the task at hand – his Daytona Duel. He was still high on adrenaline from the race. It felt good, racing again. He was thankful Matt Donovan had been in the first Duel of the day, knowing Matt wouldn't have hesitated to put him in a wall if the opportunity arose. He wasn't too worried about Matt at the actual 500 in a few days. One driver getting loose was all it took to cause a mass pileup and Donovan wasn't going to run the risk of getting himself caught up in a crash. There were plenty of other races for him and Damon to swap paint.

Now that the Duel was behind him and his qualifying position was locked in, he had to find Elena. She wasn't hard to spot. She was waiting patiently for one of his teammates, Jeff, who had clinched the pole position, to finish up an interview. He waited, watching. As soon as she told Jeff goodbye, he made his move.

"Elena."

She turned at the sound of his voice.

"Damon, hey," she said with a smile. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks," he said shortly. "We need to talk." He watched as Elena's friendly expression turned to one of confusion.

"Okay," she agreed. "What's up?" Damon shook his head.

"Not here," he said. "Come on." He turned on his heel and left Elena to follow him.

"Damon, what's going on?" she asked as she hurried to keep up with him. He was striding with purpose, his gait long. He didn't answer, leading her through the garage area. They arrived at his hauler, empty now that the Duel was over and the car secured away in the garage area. He yanked open a side door and went in. Elena followed. "Damon, what…?" she tried again. He flipped on a light and turned to her.

"Molly is mine, isn't she?"

Elena's sharp intake of air and the look of surprise on her face told him everything. Still, he waited, his arms crossed as he leaned against a toolbox, for Elena to give him an answer. He needed to hear her say it.

His question hung between them for what felt like ages. He watched as Elena processed the question, realizing he knew the truth. She opened and shut her mouth, swallowed hard. Took a deep breath.

"Yes," she finally whispered, the word sounding choked, like she was struggling to get it out. Damon pursed his lips and took a moment before responding. He was angry, but he was trying to keep his anger in check.

"My family knows. They have known the whole time." This time, Elena just nodded.

"Damon…" she started, searching for words to explain. She didn't know what to do, how to respond. Damon was angry, rightly so. She knew it from his short sentences and the way he stood almost entirely still, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw locked.

"When is her birthday?" he asked.

"March 10th," Elena answered. Damon nodded once, doing the math in his head. Her birthday was in three weeks.

"How early was she born?"

"Seven weeks."

"August," he said. "You got pregnant in August." Elena nodded. They both knew when and where Molly was conceived. They hadn't had sex in nearly a month. Damon had just told her he was going to drive for the Mikealsons. They fought. It was loud and passionate. They had sex, angry, rough, passionate sex. Then, they fought some more. That was the last time they spoke.

Damon left for Florida the next morning.

"It was my fault," she said softly. "With everything going on, I forgot to take my birth control a few times." She looked at him. "How did you find out?"

"I figured it out for myself," Damon spat out. "She asked me for ketchup for her eggs. The blue eyes, the nut allergies… I should have figured it out sooner, but I've been distracted." He rounded on Elena. "Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you hoping I was dumb enough not to realize she has my eyes, my allergies, and my weird taste buds?"

"I was going to tell you," Elena said. She took a step towards Damon, but didn't dare come any closer. He reminded her of a cornered wild animal, ready to pounce, but biding his time, sizing up the situation before he attacked. "After the 500, I was going to tell you everything. I wanted to give you the chance to get through that before I dropped this on you too."

"So you were being considerate," Damon quipped. "How nice." Elena sighed.

"Damon, I know you're angry," Elena started.

"Damn right I am!" Damon burst out. "I have a three year old kid I knew nothing about! My parents, my brother, my sister-in-law – everyone who is supposed to be my family knew and didn't say a word. You, the woman I thought was the love of my life, didn't say a word. My kid has been growing up a couple thousand miles away, and I've been none the wiser. Is that why you really moved to San Bernardino, Elena? To keep me from being a part of Molly's life?"

"No!" Elena erupted. She knew Damon was angry. But, she was angry too. She had been for a long, long time. "I moved to San Bernardino because you left! You took off to Florida without a backwards glance. Not a goodbye, not a see you around, not even a nice knowing you. You just left! I didn't know I was pregnant when I moved away. I was too devastated from the loss of my relationship to realize the nausea and exhaustion were because I was pregnant. As soon as I found out, I tried to tell you. You wouldn't answer the phone. You wouldn't reply to emails."

"Don't you dare blame this on me," Damon shot back. He kept his voice at a normal level, but it was laced with venom.

"None of us are in the right!" Elena cried out. "We have all made mistakes."

"Keep your voice down," Damon hissed. "The last thing I need is for it to get out that I've got an illegitimate kid." Elena took a step back, feeling like she had been slapped. Despite everything that had happened between them, she wanted to believe Molly had been conceived from love, even if that love didn't last. Hearing Damon call their daughter "illegitimate" hurt in a way she hadn't expected it to. Still, she took a deep breath and pushed forward, working to keep her voice down.

"You took off. I gave up trying to tell you. Your family gave up. Even my own parents gave up. Maybe we didn't try hard enough, but we did try, Damon. When you wouldn't take our calls, Stefan cornered you at Dover. You told him to go to hell and when he wouldn't budge, you took a swing at him!"

Damon didn't say anything. He remembered the incident Elena was referring to. Stefan had sought him out at Dover, cornered him in the garage, and told him they needed to talk, that there was something he needed to know. Damon hadn't wanted to hear anything he had to say, sure it was the same song and dance he had given him when he announced he was leaving Salvatore Racing. He could remember Stefan saying something about Elena needing him, but he had told him to go away and when his little brother stood his ground, he took a swing, missing only because Stefan ducked just in time.

"My own mother even tried to tell you, Damon! You had security escort her away!"

He remembered that too. Miranda Gilbert had banged on the door of his motor home the morning of a race at Texas, demanding that he talk to her. He had called security without bothering to hear what she had to say and within minutes, she was being led away.

"None of that changes the fact that someone could have told me," he said. "Someone should have told me! Hell, you've been back in Mystic Falls for over a month! You could have told me anytime in the last six weeks!"

"I know!" Elena said. "God, Damon, do you think I don't know that? You have no idea how hard this is…"

"No," Damon said cutting her off again. "You don't get to tell me things have been hard for you. I have no sympathy for you. You chose to keep her from me. You chose to be a single mother. Any struggles you have had in the last few years are all on you." Tears welled up in Elena's eyes.

"You have no idea how hard the last four years have been," she said again. Her voice was low, even, full of malice. "While you were out drinking and sleeping your way through Daytona Beach, I was trying to reconcile the fact that the man I loved, that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, had turned his back on me. I had to deal with the fact that no matter how much I wanted you to know you had a daughter, I couldn't get through to you to tell you. I couldn't tell you I needed you.

"And you know what the worst part of it was?" Elena continued. "When Molly was born, I thought my baby was going to die! I tried to call you then, too. I even called the Mikaelsons in an attempt to give you a message, but they wouldn't listen to me either, gave me some crap about privacy. I tried to call you so you would at least get to tell her goodbye!"

Damon didn't know what to say. His blood was boiling with anger, yet he still felt guilty, watching Elena's tears fall, realizing she had been largely alone. It made him all that much angrier that she could still elicit that sort of response from him when he was so furious.

"Does Molly know?" he asked, surprising Elena with the change of direction. Elena shook her head and wiped away her tears, only to have them replaced by more.

"No," she said. "She doesn't know you're her father."

"Who does she think is her father?" he asked. He didn't know how the mind of a three year old worked. "Or does she think she's a product of Immaculate Conception?"

"As far as Molly knows, her father is a man that loves her very much, he just can't be with her. She hasn't asked who or why, not yet. She's just asked where her daddy is."

Damon looked at Elena for a long moment. She had every reason, every opportunity, to fill Molly's head with stories about her father being nothing more than a mistake. And yet, she had told Molly her father loved her, even if he wasn't around. He hated that he was grateful for that. He sighed and shook his head.

"I can't deal with this right now," he said, realizing he needed more than the few hours between breakfast and now to think about things.

"I know it's a lot to take in…," Elena started. "And Damon, I'm so sorry…"

"I don't want to hear your apologies," he snapped, anger returning full force. "I don't want to hear your excuses. I want to get through the next few days and finish the Daytona 500 with my car intact."

"Damon, I don't expect…"

"Are you not hearing me?" Damon asked, cutting her off again. "I don't want to deal with this right now. I can't deal with this right now. Which means as far as my parents, Caroline, and anyone else who knows about Molly's parentage is concerned, I still don't know. I'm still oblivious, self-centered Damon. You're pretty damn good at keeping secrets, so I assume you can keep this between us. You owe me that."

It took Elena everything she had to nod in agreement. Damon didn't want anyone to know he knew. As far as she could tell, he didn't even want to consider the fact that Molly was his right then. She knew he needed time. He needed space. She would give him those things, but not at the cost of her daughter's feelings.

"I won't say anything," she said. "But, Damon, you won't either. Not to Molly. As far as she's concerned, you are her friend. I don't know if you've realized it, but she's already crazy about you. I'm not asking you to be her father. I'm not asking you for anything, at all. We've been doing just fine by ourselves. But, you will not treat her differently. You won't tell her you're her father until we've talked and figured things out. You can avoid her all weekend, for all I care. But if your paths happen to cross, I will not tolerate you being anything other than polite to her. I will not allow you to hurt her, especially because you're mad at me. Do you understand me?"

Damon stared Elena down.

"She's my daughter," he said. The words felt weird coming out of his mouth. "I'm not going to hurt her."

With that, Damon left the hauler, leaving Elena alone. She waited until she was sure he was gone before she slumped to the floor and cried.

If there was one thing Elena had perfected over the years, it was pulling herself together and putting one step in front of the other for Molly's sake. She gave herself fifteen minutes after Damon's departure to sit and just cry, all the anger and hurt and guilt from the last few years coming to the surface. She was terrified of what would happen next. Would Damon decide to be a father? Would he turn his back on Molly? And, worst of all, what if he tried to take Molly away from her? Surely he wouldn't, but he was angry and she didn't put anything past him.

After crying her allotted quarter of an hour, she took another fifteen minutes to pull herself together before she went to retrieve Molly from the teenage daughter of one of their drivers who had offered to babysit the smaller kids on weekends to save up for her half of a graduation trip she wanted to take in the spring.

She had skipped returning to the motor home, called a cab, and took Molly to dinner and the beach. She hadn't eaten much, her stomach a mess, but the one-on-one time with her baby girl did wonders for her. When they got back to the track, she hadn't been able to escape Ginny and Caroline who were giddy over Caroline's baby news, now public knowledge as Ginny was too smart for them. Her elation over another grandchild proved to keep her attention away from Elena. She would have surely realized something was wrong and lying to Ginny was next to impossible.

Once Molly was in bed, she slipped way, asking Caroline and Stefan to keep an ear out for Molly in the event that she woke up. They asked where she was going and she made up an excuse about needing to use the makeshift business center set up in the garage. She set out on foot with no real destination in mind, and ended up perched on the tower of one of the pit stalls.

The last four years had simultaneously been the best and worst of her life. Being Molly's mother was the single greatest thing that had ever happened to her. She loved that little girl more than anything. She would do whatever she had to do to ensure Molly was happy, safe, and knew she was loved, wanted. She wouldn't trade a single thing that had happened, as it had all brought her Molly.

But being a single mother was hard.

She had found out two weeks after moving to San Bernardino that she was pregnant. She hadn't hesitated to try and tell Damon. In hindsight, she realized she had foolishly thought he would come back to her if he knew. It was shallow and naïve, but it was what she had believed would happen.

Her breakup with Damon had devastated her. They hadn't officially broke up. The words have never been said. But, after yet another argument, he took off to Florida to drive for the Mikealsons and she never heard from him again. He just left.

She knew they were having a hard time. She was just out of college and trying to figure out her next move. Damon was chomping at the bit to move into the Sprint Cup series and was furious at his father for not giving him the chance. But, she had thought they loved one another enough to make it through the rough patch. Even when she was screaming at him for being irresponsible and hurting his family, she had thought he loved her enough to fight for them.

But then, he left. No goodbyes, not even a note. He just left.

San Bernardino had been a lifeline. She had planned to stay in Mystic Falls when her parents made their announcement that her father had taken a Chief of Surgery job out west. Damon was there, her friends. She had a life. But then, when Damon left, it seemed like the only right thing to do – go somewhere new and start over. She had no idea she would be doing that with a child in tow.

About a month after finding out she was pregnant and the realization that Damon wasn't going to be a part of it starting to sink in, she pulled herself up by her metaphorical bootstraps and tackled the idea of parenthood head on. She knew the Marcos' team was headquartered in San Bernardino and she knew they needed marketing help. She went to them, pitched her plan to turn their operation around, and got the job. She found her own apartment, much to her parents' dismay, and slowly, started to make it into a home. She was determined to do it all on her own. So determined that she pushed herself to the limit, day in and day out.

Her blood pressure had been high throughout the pregnancy. Her doctor had continuously advised her to rest, to stop pushing herself, slow down and just be pregnant for a while. But Elena couldn't slow down. She had to move forward, past a man who didn't love her as much as she thought he did, past a man who didn't want to be found, who wouldn't know he had a daughter on the way. If she stopped, she would fall apart.

She had been at work when it happened. She was in a meeting when she suddenly felt lightheaded and weak. She slumped over in her chair, unconscious, and when she came to, her mother had been there with a tear-stained face, letting her know her blood pressure had spiked and that they had to take the baby in an effort to save both their lives. She had demanded to see her daughter and had fallen apart all over again at the sight of the helpless little girl, hooked to tubes in an incubator, fighting for her life.

The guilt she had over not telling Damon about Molly had nothing on the guilt she still felt about how Molly had entered the world. She should have taken better care of herself, listened to the doctor, accepted help when her parents and the Salvatores offered. She didn't, though, and her daughter had nearly died.

Slowly, Molly started to improve. Other than being small for her age, she had, by some miracle, escaped any major side effects from being born too early. When she had been able to bring Molly home, she had an oxygen tank at first. Elena had devoted herself entirely to caring for the baby, and was able to thanks to support from the Marcos. She had finally gone back to work when Molly was six months old, trusting Molly to her mother's care during the day. It had taken a lot of courage for Elena to finally enroll the girl in a daycare program a few days a week when she turned a year old, but it was the right thing, for all involved.

Being a single mother was hard. Her own mother helped when she could, but Miranda had her own life, not to mention they were struggling with Jeremy's addiction. So, she shouldered as much of the burden as she possible could so her own mother didn't have to. She woke up extra early to get ready for the day and make breakfast before she woke Molly up. She rushed through a morning routine of getting her to daycare or to her mother's house, depending on the day, and then to work. She picked Molly at the end of the day and spent one-on-one time with her, made her dinner, gave her a bath, put her to bed. Then, she would stay up until well into the night, finishing up work or else doing chores around the house. It was exhausting and, admittedly, lonely.

Her brother's death had been another setback. Again, she had to put one foot in front of the other for Molly, no matter how heartbroken she was. She had to be there for her parents, particularly her mother, who were devastated, while dealing with her own deep grief. She was sure her father's decision to retire early had a lot to do with Jeremy's death. They felt the loss profusely and needed to move on, start over somewhere, much as she had needed a fresh slate after Damon left.

Being back in Mystic Falls was good. She didn't regret the decision to move home. She knew in her heart she was where she needed to be. She knew too that this was going to happen. Damon was going to find out, and he wasn't going to react well. It was time though. This had gone on for far too long, far longer than she ever intended it to.

In the most perfect of worlds, Molly would have had both her and Damon. They had talked about marriage, kids. At one time, Damon had wanted those things. She would give anything for Molly to have a real family, a family with a mother and father who loved each other, who adored her. That was no longer an option, at least not with Damon.

Her next best scenario was that Damon would step up and be a father to Molly. She knew he was capable of it. His life was a mess right now, but if he chose to, he could be a wonderful father to Molly. She had known Damon when he was capable of expressing his love, of being the good guy. He could be the guy again. If he wanted to.

Then, there was the very likely possibility that Damon would want nothing to do with Molly. His life was, in fact, a mess. He was a mess. Adding a child to that equation could be a recipe for disaster. It was the outcome she wasn't sure how to deal with. If Damon decided he wanted nothing to do with Molly, she didn't know how she would continue to work with Damon, how she was going to be able to face him and not want to claw his eyes out for turning his back on the most perfect little girl. Of course, if he did decide not to be in Molly's life, she only had herself to blame.

No matter what, she had to protect Molly. She couldn't let Molly know Damon was her father until Damon had decided what he wanted. If he did decide to be a part of Molly's life, she would have to be careful, be sure that he was there and that he wasn't going to go anywhere before they told Molly anything. It was too much to think about right then. She had to take Damon's approach, for now, and just get through the rest of the weekend.

She breathed deep before deciding she had been gone long enough. She carefully climbed down the ladder and started back the motor home. Had she been paying any attention to her surroundings, she would have seen Damon, sitting high in the stands, lost in his own thoughts.

So, Damon's reaction... He's definitely angry. But, I think it's safe to say, he's definitely some other things too. He's been interesting to write so far.

I really wanted to give some more insight into Elena too. Damon left her. There have been lots of questions about what happened to them. He left her, plain and simple. He was there one day, gone the next. That's going to be something that's explored a lot in future updates. I know its hard to feel sympathy for Elena, but she's had it rough the last few years too. Like she said, all of them have made mistakes.

Anyway, I'd LOVE to know what you think! And I promise I won't take so long between updates next time!