Saved By Grace: Chapter Five - Leviticus (The Law) - (5/7)
The third morning in a row that Elena wakes up nauseated and puking, she's hanging over the toilet when Lydia comes in behind her and says, "You aren't still trying to tell yourself it's the flu, right?"
That's how she first begins to suspect, but she feels too awful to actually panic about it until a little later that day, after her first final is over. She looks at a calendar, does the math, realizes she hasn't had her period, and then does the math again. (With studying for finals and finishing up projects and the like, she really hadn't noticed how late she was.) Then she goes to Google and searches early pregnancy symptoms, and bam! she realizes she's a walking ad for the entire list. Her boobs have been super sore, which usually meant her period was going to start shortly, but it hadn't. She's been exhausted, but hello, she's so stressed with school, and catching up after her sixteen days of dalliance with Damon, it didn't seem so odd to be tired. But it's really the nausea when she first gets up and moving in the morning and the actual throwing up that finally makes her accept the obvious.
She's having a full-on panic attack when she sees Lydia again that evening. Her roommate gets home from work, sees how beside herself Elena is, and sits down next to her on the sofa to offer comfort. Elena ends up telling her everything that she's conveniently left out until now because this is impossible. Completely. Totally. Impossible.
(Vampires can't procreate...but we love to try.)
She had unprotected sex with Stefan for almost six months because of that vampire attribute. She had sixteen days worth of unprotected sex with Damon, who is not just a vampire, but also a werewolf; and now apparently, she is pregnant. They'd done it multiple times a day-for sixteen days. The only way she wouldn't be pregnant is if, you know, he couldn't get her that way.
So when she wraps her arms around her knees and starts rocking back and forth, the truth just spills from her lips; everything-Damon being a vampire, the Sacrifice, Klaus coming to town, Elijah telling her that his brother wanted to sire his own race, Damon getting bit by Tyler, and then taking her blood, and turning Hybrid himself. "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod," she whispers into her knees while Lydia sits beside her with her arm around her shoulders.
It’s probably helpful that Elena is freaking out herself, because it calls for one of them to be calm; Lydia should be much more shocked by this tale of insanity, but she manages to succinctly sum it up. "That's the craziest fucking thing I've ever heard, but then, it explains a whole lot of the weirdness I picked up on between you guys, and Damon in general. He's just not...normal, you know? But I just figured he had a fucked up childhood, not that he's like ancient. Oh, my God!” she gasps, interrupting herself. “Elena! Are you going to have a demon baby, like Bella and Edward?"
Elena starts laughing then, because hysteria is the only emotion she can manage, and her tears appear to have dried up in the face of Lydia's legitimate, but completely ridiculous, question. She shakes her head and says, "Well, I don't know for sure, since I think I'm the first one to ever be pregnant this way, but it feels like all the normal pregnancy symptoms. Of course," she adds as an afterthought, giggling madly, "it's not like I can Google Hybrid Pregnancy Symptoms."
Looking very concerned, Lydia rubs her back soothingly, like that will make everything all right. Elena takes a deep breath. Then she states the real problem: "This is going to freak Damon out."
Four days later, he's kissing her like he's missed her as much as she's missed him-but there's something more to it, too. She can feel urgency that's not just of the I need to get off variety. In fact, she expects him to join their bodies as soon as he's disposed of his own clothes (his vampire speed is always more impressive when he's tearing off his shirt and getting out of his pants quicker than her eye can even see), but he pauses. His hands fondle her breasts carefully, his thumbs circling around her nipples exploratorily. Her teeth worry her bottom lip because she's extra sensitive, and a moan sounds deep in her throat. "Damon," she gasps. "Please," she urges, lifting her hips up against him, trapping his erection between their bellies. (Another pregnancy symptom? She feels like she wants him about a thousand times more than she did before, which is ridiculous because she wanted him very much before.) Now, her hands clutch at him clumsily and he grins into her mouth, running his tongue around and over hers, but never letting their lips seal together. In frustration she fights him for dominance, finally lodging his bottom lip between her teeth, which always seems to send him over the edge.
He slides an arm under her thigh, lifting her leg up and out so he can press himself into her. He feels bigger, filling her up in a way that's more than it's ever been before. Elena closes her eyes, internally facing her biggest fear: that this is the last time they'll ever be like this, because when she tells him it will change everything.
Their urgency has nothing to do with their movements-if anything, she thinks he's trying to draw it out, to make it last longer; his strokes are deep and slow, but she's wound up, and it doesn't take much. She starts coming without any warning, and then he grunts, his mouth landing against her throat as he climaxes.
Along with the physical release, she's swamped by emotions that she can't control-fear, wonder, more fear-and tears pour down her face. Sobs erupt from her throat and Damon holds her tightly, murmuring to her and stroking her hair when she can't communicate what's wrong. She wraps her arms around him, the physical need for him so much greater than the sexual pleasure he brings her. Everything is so delicate between them, so new, so precious, and yet there is some aspect to it that makes her feel as if she's had him for so much longer-and it will be so much harder to go back to not having him if he doesn't take this baby news well.
She doesn't know how to tell him, other than to just say it-so she ends up declaring her love, almost overstating it, almost gushing to a point of ridiculousness, but Damon’s only response is to hold her closer and tell her that he loves her, too. Then he gives her more. "It's okay, Elena." His hand spreads out against her back, warm and strong, so secure that she sees an anchor in her mind, holding her steady, in the place she should be. Again and again, it's the shades of Damon that surprise her. "Just say it. Just tell me," he urges. Just when she thinks she can't love him more, she suddenly does-loves him so much, she can't believe she ever thought she loved anyone else.
She looks into his face, lightly touching the features that have become so familiar to her they might as well be her own. She knows this will be the scariest thing that's ever happened to either of them, and the reality is, he might not be able to handle it.
(She might not be able to, either, especially if he doesn't support her decision.)
Cupping his cheek in her hand, she says, "I'm pregnant."
His expression goes blank, and she knows it's because he can't comprehend it. It makes no sense, it doesn't compute, there is no previous information about this particular subject for him to use as reference. He just looks like she struck his frontal lobe with a blunt object, wiping him of all understanding. "What?" he sputters, and sits up, the reaction happening in his body more quickly than his mind. She follows him, tries to grab his hands, but he shakes her off and all but roars, "What?" and she suddenly realizes his first conclusion is not anything she even considered because she's the one who knows what Elijah said about Klaus.
"Damon, Damon..." He scoots away from her like she's become repulsive to him and she holds her hands up in a placating manner. "It's yours. It's your baby. You can make babies now. I swear to you, it's yours. Think about it. With all of the other changes that happened to your body when Tyler bit you-this is just more of that. It's your baby," she adds insistently, staring hard into his eyes.
He visibly relaxes, and she can see the puzzle pieces falling into place in his mind, though this understanding is quickly followed by a different kind of incomprehension. His face contorts again and he repeats "What?" but not in the accusatory way of seconds before.
When she reaches her hand out to him this time, she curls her fingers around his and he doesn't pull away, but he doesn't grasp back. He's still so dumbfounded, she has to fill in the silence or go stark raving mad. "I started to feel sick about a week ago. With all the stress of school, I didn't even notice, but then Lydia-well, of course, she knew first, just like she knew I loved you before I did, and I was freaking out, but then I had time to think about it, and I just-"
"Stop." That's all he says, just the one word, so quietly it's like a gunshot between them.
She's crying again (or maybe she never stopped?) and she blurts, "I've been wondering, all this time, about my purpose, and now-"
"I said, stop," and the blankness is different now, not incomprehension any longer, but something else. Something that makes her shrink back. "I have to go get Stefan," he announces and Elena feels like she's got whiplash; like he had to find a way to trump her big moment, and he totally had one up his sleeve for it. "Katherine came back, and she has a plan, she's going to find Elijah, and we're going to go get Stefan. Bring him home, finally. He wants it."
Now it's Elena's turn to say, "What?" She shakes her head, trying to find the most important part of those few sentences...Katherine...Elijah...Stefan. "Did he call you?" With one sharp, negative head shake, he's off the bed, bending over to pick up his boxer briefs and dress slacks from the floor. "How do you know he wants to come home, then? You're going to take Katherine's word for it? What if it's a trap?"
"It's not a trap."
"How do you know that?"
He turns away from her. "I just do, okay, Elena?"
He gets dressed, which in and of itself would be enough for her to know something has gone terribly awry. Once Damon is naked, generally the only way to get him dressed again is for her to insist that she needs food to be able to keep functioning. She pulls the bed sheet around her shoulders, shivering from a chill that has nothing to do with the drafty house. "So you're going to break your promise to me." It's not a question, and she doesn't know why she's surprised. Stefan chose Damon over her; it stands to reason when faced with the same choice Damon would follow suit.
(She just can't believe she really thought she was what mattered most to him.)
(She can't believe she just told him she's pregnant, and his only reaction is to run away.)
(Actually, yes she can.)
"He's my brother," he states, like he has a thousand times before, when it serves his purpose.
"Right," she snorts, scooting off the bed on the far side, away from him. "I'm just the mother of your child. A child you should never have been able to father. A child I suppose you would never have wanted, unless maybe Katherine could have been its mother."
She's not looking at him when she says that, and she's not even sure where it comes from, only that it's been an underlying fear all along. One day, Katherine would come calling, would remind him that she loved him, and Stefan, and they would all go be vampires together.
It had been a small fear, one that she had written in her diary not long after Stefan's departure, before she even knew that Katherine had been running around with him. (Before she knew she loved Damon.) Her fear then had just been Damon leaving like Stefan had, and a realization that she didn't know if she could survive that. All she could see was her own likeness, hair curled perfectly, toes pointed with precision as she walked away. (It's okay to love them both. I did.)
She imagined Damon's seeming indifference would melt away with time, and it would finally occur to him that what he'd always wanted was still there, still possible.
Katherine Pierce. Katerina Petrova. She, who came first.
Elena should never have worried about Katherine directly; only Stefan, and Katherine using the younger Salvatore to lure the older.
He takes a breath at her declaration; it's the sound she's heard many a vampire make when wood enters their body, a pain-filled gasp that ends in an almost-groan. She glances over at him, but he's not looking at her. "You know that's not true," he says, and the lack of fire in his response more than breaks her heart. It makes her feel like she'll never walk upright again-she'll just be hunched over the ache in her middle, protectively guarding the last feeling she'll ever let Damon Salvatore evoke in her.
(She knew if it ever ended, it would end badly, but she had no idea it would be this awful.)
She leaves Damon’s bedroom and goes into Stefan's to find clothes to put on to go home in. The ones she'd been wearing when she arrived at the Boarding House are on Damon's bathroom floor, but she can't be in the same room with him anymore.
For so long she refused to come back here-Stefan’s room had been a non-place in the house to her; even when they'd done their clean out the crap project the previous summer, Damon had been the one to come in this room and grab old boxes of stuff that needed to be sorted. Now, she stands in the middle of it, remembering how she shared it with one stranger but she longs for another one in another room-another stranger, another person who could disappoint her so shockingly. Was it possible to know people and never really grasp anything about them? It's happened to her twice in a matter of a year, and she's not sure she can endure it again.
Minutes later, as she climbs into her car (always hoping, thinking possibly Damon won't let her get that far), she realizes Stefan's room is the only safe place left there; it’s the one place she might find free of Damon in some strange way.
It doesn’t matter; she'll never go back.
Two days before Christmas, Alaric comes in her room. She's laying on the bed, practically comatose, a glass of water and package of saltine crackers on the bedside table.
He sits on the end of the bed and wraps his hand around one of her ankles beneath the afghan she's got thrown over herself. She stirs, opening an eye to look at him. "What?" she asks.
"Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on? I just got back from the Boarding House, and Damon's on a bender. I mean-I've never seen so many empty alcohol bottles that have been drained by one person. And he was fairly incomprehensible, rambling on about Stefan and a baby and Katherine and the way it should be and none of it made any sense to me."
Elena rubs her eyes and looks up at the ceiling. "You know about the rescue mission to get Stefan, don't you?" she asks, certain that Ric's playing dumb on some level.
"Well, yeah, but that was all pending on how you felt about it. I assumed you'd veto Damon going, and he'd defer to you because he's incapable of not deferring to you, and then he'd send me, or Caroline, or Bonnie with Katherine and Elijah, to see if it was even possible to get Stefan to come home."
"He didn't give me any options, he just told me he's going. Didn't want to discuss it, just wanted to do it."
Alaric watches her silently for a moment, and when she doesn’t elaborate, he says, "So you fought, okay, that helps a little. But, seriously, Elena, he's falling apart over there, and I-"
"Alaric, I'm pregnant." That shuts him up. (It seems to be the two words in the English language that silences the entire male population.)
He just stares at her, and then his eyes move down her body to the stomach he can't see because she's under a blanket, but it's comical how his expression seems to indicate that he thinks he should be able to tell. He finally says, "But I thought vampires couldn't..."
"Apparently Hybrids can." Ric nods once, like that's totally obvious.
(None of it's obvious. What she's going to do, how she feels about this, what happens next.)
He clears his throat and his hand squeezes her ankle. "Well, it all makes a lot more sense now. Fuck," he breathes out, looking away. She can't even summon a laugh at his lack of advice or comfort. She can hear Damon in her head, though she'd like to shut him up permanently: we're all screwed. She closes her eyes, wishing she could just go to sleep and wake up to a different reality, one where her biggest problem is that she's in love with her missing ex-boyfriend's brother. Oh, those were the good ol' days, weren't they?
“He’s just drinking?” she asks. “Not feeding?”
She can feel Ric’s stillness, but she’s afraid to look at his face as she waits for an answer. “No,” he says slowly. “He doesn’t do that anymore. I mean, he's freaking out, sure, but he’s not-no. He doesn’t do that, and I actually think it’s not even his first line of defense anymore, if that makes you feel better.” He shakes her leg gently and Elena opens her eyes again. "And what about you? You’re mad at him for leaving? Did you guys break up?"
Elena shrugs. "He didn't have one word to say to me about the baby. I told him I was pregnant and he told me he was going to get Stefan; that was the extent of the conversation. I left because I didn't know what else to do. He doesn't want it. I mean, I knew he wouldn't, but I thought he might...at least try."
Ric's expression changes rapidly, a laundry list of fatherly concern erupting over his face. He just says, "Whatever you decide to do, I'll support you, Elena. I'll take you to the clinic if you want, or we-"
"What?" she says, finally springing into a sitting position. She knocks his hand away from her leg. "I'm not having an abortion, Ric! This is mine and Damon's child! This is my child. This is a child that shouldn't even be possible and you-"
He reaches out and grabs her by the shoulders, interrupting her with, "You didn't let me finish, which was-or we can have a baby. You know Jeremy and I would be there for you, to support you and make sure you have everything you need." He rubs his hands up and down her arms. "Whatever you decide, I'm behind you, one hundred percent."
Sudden tears sting her eyes, and Elena feels a swell of gratitude that she can't contain. "I want to keep it. I mean, I do wish that I wasn't going to be having a baby when I'm 19, but if there's anything I know it's that you don't get to choose everything in life. But this, this is something; something impossible. There should be no more Salvatores."
It comes over her in a wave, the things she'd concluded in North Carolina but hadn't been allowed to share with Damon. Her purpose. Why her parents died (both sets), but she still lived? All those other things that she thought might be the answers paled in comparison to a baby that should never have been possible.
Ric takes her in his arms, hugging her to his chest, and she finally lets everything she's been feeling for over a week rush out of her. She'd still been in Durham when it dawned on her-with or without Damon she was having a baby. For her, there simply was no other choice.
Jeremy comes in the room a moment later because he can hear Ric and Elena laughing and crying at the same time. When she tells him he's going to be an uncle, his forehead creases for a moment and then he says, "Sweet!"
That's just what Elena thinks, when she gets past the panic and right down to it.
The next night, they exchange gifts, sitting around the fake Christmas tree Jeremy and Bonnie had put up before she came home from college. Traditionally, in the Gilbert house, they opened gifts on Christmas Eve, and the big meal was saved for Christmas Day. Ric has deferred to the traditions, and Bonnie has joined in as she and Jeremy are back together again. (Elena can't keep up with all of it, and Jeremy's tired of talking about it, so they don't. Bonnie will tell her what she needs to know.)
Elena wasn't feeling up to cooking, considering most smells made her even more nauseated than normal, so Bonnie had volunteered to help the boys do it. They brined a turkey and had it soaking in its own juices in the refrigerator overnight, and as she goes to bed that night, Elena begins to think maybe she can survive this, just like she has everything else.
She and Damon have been apart for four days now, without a word, text, or phone call between them. She doesn't know what the plan is, if he's leaving immediately (or has already left) to go get Stefan, and she realizes she can't know. It's just like when Stefan left to begin with: the only way she is going to get through it is to not let herself think about it, or take responsibility for it.
And now, it's even more important that she believe her own press, because she has to decide what she's going to do as a pregnant college student. She's brushing her teeth when the thought crosses her mind: will the Chi Omegas still let her join the sorority, as an unwed mother? It's not the 1950s, of course, but it's still not exactly what you want your poster girl to be.
She crawls into bed, burrowing under her covers. If she can't be in the sorority, it will probably be better for her anyway. It's not like she can drink anymore, or have any kind of social life anyway-who would date a pregnant girl? For some reason it's that thought that puts her over the edge and the tears she's kept at bay since she left the Boarding House pour down her face. She clings to her pillow and stuffed bear like they can make the ache in her chest go away.
(She doesn’t want to date anyone. She only wants him.)
Nothing will make it better; she doesn't even need to write that in her journal to know her heart is irreparably broken. All she wants is Damon; she needs him, and he's not here.
And, what's worse is that he doesn't want to be.
She awakes with a start, unsure of what broke into her dreams. It's still dark in her room, which means it's not yet morning, but it seems as though she's been asleep for a while.
Then she freezes, because she can feel him, lying behind her on the bed, his body pressed against hers. His fingers clench on her hip and his voice is soft and soothing, "It's just me." The words come on a gentle breath that stirs the hair around her ear, and then his lips press lightly behind it; the soft rasp of his facial hair against the tender skin causes a shudder to run down her spine.
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to be distracted by a split-second moment of insanity about the fact that Damon hasn't shaved and that she's never seen him like that before. (It does help to remember that the reason she's 18 and pregnant is because she's horribly attracted to and in love with this man who has snuck into her room in the middle of the night.) So, she asks the obvious, "What are you doing here?"
It doesn't come out nicely at all, and she feels a little proud of herself. (Of course, tears have resumed falling from her eyes already, so it's not like she's presenting a totally put-together persona. She knows he’ll be able to feel every little sob that shakes her chest.)
"I wanted to be with my family on Christmas," he says, and she thinks he's got a lot of gall, except for the complete sincerity in his voice. His breath is a bit whiskey-soaked, but he's not as drunk as the night he killed Jeremy; she can already tell that he has a lot more control than he did then. (Hybrid-doppelganger blood mix, or humanity-embraced vampire? She doesn't know. Probably, neither does he.)
He does this, though; unnerves her in the worst ways, at the worst moments, making her utterly aware of just how much she loves him, and how much he needs her, even if he can't say it in a clear-cut way. (I know you love Stefan, that it will always be Stefan. But I love you.) She's known it for far longer than she's wanted to, and it would actually make life so much easier if she didn't know. She wouldn't feel the need to take care of him, to worry about how he's dealing with the stress of an unplanned (and improbable) pregnancy when she should really just focus on her own needs, because she's the one who can never walk away.
(Would never walk away.)
Then his hand curves around her hip and slides down, coming to rest over her stomach. Half of his palm is directly on her skin, the other covering her pajama shorts waistband. "Damon-" she starts and he shushes her, his breath in her ear making her tremble. She grabs at his hand anyway, trying to push him away, but of course she can't because she can never overpower him or make him do anything he doesn't want to do.
(I assumed you'd veto Damon going, and he'd defer to you because he's incapable of not deferring to you.)
Ric's voice in her head reminds her: this is about so much more than just him going after Stefan, but the fact that he's still in Mystic Falls does mean something. Maybe Ric's right, maybe her power over Damon is real and not limited to promises made after sexual favors have been exchanged.
All the same, she can't do this: she can't go through it over and over. Now is the moment. So she tells him. "I can't. You can't. If you're here now, it's because you're here, with me. If you can't handle it, fine, but it's all or nothing, Damon. You choose me and the baby, right now, and promise to never walk away, or you leave, and you never come back. I can't," she says again, tightening her hand around his. She can't move it, but she still squeezes it with all of her strength while tears seep down her cheeks.
When the sobs erupt from her mouth, he buries his face in the hair covering her neck. He hugs her tight, whispering things she can't really understand, and she's not sure if he's agreeing to her terms or saying goodbye; she's about to start screaming when he presses his lips directly over her ear. "I'm sorry, baby," he says. "I'm so, so, so sorry." Then words start spilling rapidly from his lips, things she could only hope he would ever tell her. (This is when she knows he's just the right amount of drunk.) "Ric told me you think I don't want it, but that's not true. I want it, Elena, more than I want anything. More. More. You don't get it, you don't know, you're so young-" the way his voice caresses the last word makes it almost the loveliest thing he's ever called her, not a reminder of the difference between them. "When I was human, the only things there were in plantation life were tobacco crops and children. I was to inherit my father's estate, being the eldest son, and it was up to me to find a proper southern lady to make my bride, to carry my children; someone who was healthy and strong, who could endure the hardship that came with plantation life. It wasn't easy, not even for gentlemen and ladies, though, obviously, it was much easier on us than it was on the servants. The slaves. Oh, god," he mutters, gripping her harder, pressing in tighter against her.
He switches gears so quickly, it takes her a moment to follow him. “This should never have happened, you know,” he says, and laughter follows right after the words, but it’s not funny, not in the slightest. “You and me, it’s not real, and now here we are, in the most real situation we could ever be in, and I’m the only option, and you must be aware that there are so many others who would be what you need them to be, but all you’ve got is me, and-“
She turns in his arms because she can’t bear any more. This is not what she thinks, it’s only what he thinks she thinks and he couldn’t be more wrong, and she doesn’t know how he’s come to these awful conclusions.
In a moment when he’s a fountain of words, it's ironic that the only thing she can think of to prove them wrong is to place her mouth over his. She climbs on top of him, easily pushing him onto his back, and her fingers start wresting with his shirt buttons until his own hands slip between them to assist. She feels her way up to his face, her fingertips dragging through several days worth of stubble on his chin and cheeks that she knows will tear her own face up if she keeps kissing him, but she doesn’t care. All she cares about is making him believe that she would want him to be the father of her child in any circumstance, planned or otherwise.
Between kisses and caresses, she whispers her truths to him.
I lived when my parents died for a reason.
His hands abandon his shirt's buttons when most of them are undone to slide down between them and yank open his pants. She hitches her hips up and he snags his forefingers into the sides of her shorts and underwear, pushing them both down her legs.
I thought it was to save your life, to save all of you, to be the Doppelganger, but it wasn’t. It was to have this baby.
She kisses him deeply as each of his hands open over her upper legs, pulling them apart so she's straddling him. She feels him hot and hard at the juncture of her thighs, but his fingers are there first, readying her, sliding teasingly over her clitoris and rubbing gently at her opening until she’s gasping and pressing herself into him.
I need you, Damon. YOU. And you have to know it.
He whimpers as he replaces his fingers with his cock and she moans into his neck as he enters her. His hands move around to cup her buttocks and he guides her up and down until they’re both panting desperately. "Oh, God, Elena," he mutters, bucking up underneath her, his fingers clenching at the delicate skin of her hips. He jerks her into him, hard, and they both inhale sharply when the sensations peak simultaneously.
I love you, more than any words can convey.
She kisses her way up his throat, dragging her tongue over the prickly hair at his chin until their lips mesh again as she rocks over him. So close, so close…she can feel the heat expanding inside her. She wishes the room wasn’t so dark, wishes she could look into his eyes as she lifts her head to say in a low but firm voice, “This was meant to be.”
He groans, a needy but pithy sound, and then he shudders beneath her, and she knows he found something intangible because his arms clamp around her tightly. When she says softly, “It’s supposed to be us, me and you, forever,” he buries his face in her throat and she can feel the wetness of his tears against her skin.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeats again and again, and she thinks maybe it’s a distraction tool, but she lets him have it. It’s so hard for him, not just to feel it all himself, but to accept her feelings in return, and she’s never been able to put herself first in the face of such need.
Her necessities always seem to be fulfilled, one way or another, and she feels slightly ashamed for having dialed into Damon’s reaction so wrongly. Her own fears had made it impossible to see at first, but now she understands.
And now, she doesn’t have to clasp him so tightly. She can let him go, to do what he needs to do.
As he relaxes under her, she smoothes her fingers into his hair, caressing his scalp lightly. Pressing her mouth against his bottom lip, she sucks on it delicately before saying, “You should go get Stefan.”
He doesn't say anything, but his hands slide up her back, under the camisole that he never quite managed to remove. She lays her head on his chest and says, "We'll be okay. You go, and get him. Bring him home, and we'll go from there."
His fingers flex against her ribs and she feels him shake his head. "That's not gonna happen."
"Why not?" she murmurs, feeling very sleepy. She’ll probably fade out before she can hear his reasoning, but they can talk about it all later.
"Because I just found out from Elijah that Klaus is going to be gunning for you, and our baby."
At 6am on Christmas morning, Bonnie, Caroline, Alaric, Jeremy, Damon, and Elena all gather around the Gilbert dining table. They aren't eating some kind of crazy Christmas-themed breakfast, and none of them are smiling as Damon explains what he learned from the Original who once betrayed their trust, that they are now forced to take at his word again, because, well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles for all of them.
Damon wanted to invite Katherine to the pow-wow, just for the sake of solidarity, but Elena used her veto power on that one. (It hadn’t been hard, because he really didn’t want her there either, much to Elena’s relief.) If she's going to be unable to sleep because of this horrifying news, feeling sick to her stomach not just because she's pregnant, but also because this is the cycle of her life, always and forever, she will have one thing her way; and that is to not have Katherine anywhere near her.
"So, here's the deal-Elijah has always known Klaus's plan to build his own race of Hybrids. This was the main reason he wished to kill his brother, but of course, we all know how that went down." Damon smirks to his audience and Bonnie delivers a death glare worthy of a witch who had been willing to lay down her own life to prevent any such thing from happening. "So ever since he left Mystic Falls with Stefan, his plan has been to find some breeding partners and get to work on his master plan. According to Katherine, none of the women he's taken up with have turned up pregnant. At first, he was too busy raping and pillaging to be too bothered by it, but as the months wore on, he started to get frustrated, as one might imagine.
"Enter me. I was bit, as you all know, by our pet dog, Tyler Lockwood. Because of the...nature of the delusions involved in that process, I bit Elena. Elena's blood, being Doppelganger blood, did something fancy to my body, causing me to become a Hybrid, like Klaus."
"Damon, we know all this already. What’s the point?" Bonnie asks. She sounds tired, and Elena reaches out to grasp Damon's hand when she sees his jaw tighten in irritation.
"He's getting to the point, Bonnie," she says, giving her friend a please, be patient look.
"The point," Damon enunciates the 'T' with precision, "is that Elena is pregnant." His hand clenches around hers almost spasmodically, and she laces her fingers through his. They're standing together at the head of the table, and Elena's eyes are trained on Bonnie's face, though it's Caroline who gasps out a swear word in surprise. Bonnie says nothing, but her eyes move back and forth between Elena's face and Damon's.
"The other point, Bonnie," Damon says, narrowing his eyes at Elena's oldest friend, "is that apparently only a Doppelganger can carry a Hybrid baby, according to Elijah-something he once suspected, but never knew for sure until Katherine presented him with the information about Klaus’s failures. Luckily, this is information he made sure to never tell his nasty brother, but who knows how long we've got until he figures it out; and since the Doppelganger isn’t dead...” He doesn’t finish the thought, but Elena can see it on all their faces that they understand where it leads. “So, now, it's not just imperative that we off Klaus to get my blood junkie of a brother back, but we have to kill him to protect Elena, and the baby."
The room is silent for a long moment, and Elena can feel the tension radiating from Damon; the strength in his body coiled for the moment, but likely to unfurl suddenly, especially if someone pisses him off. She tightens her hand around his and then wraps her other one around his upper arm, holding on to him, trying to ground him physically and emotionally.
Alaric disrupts the quiet by stating, “Katherine and Elijah are going to go and attempt to kill Klaus, for good, and bring Stefan home.” Damon nods in response.
“How do we know Elijah won’t change his mind again?” Bonnie asks, looking at Alaric.
“Because Elijah now knows where all of his family is-Katherine got him out of storage, and he’s going to get the rest of his family out. He thinks he’ll be able to get them all on-board to do away with the Prodigal.” Damon answers for Ric, who doesn’t have any knowledge of what Katherine and Elijah shared with him before he came to Elena only a couple hours before.
“Is it really smart to unleash all the Originals?” Caroline asks. “I mean, what kind of people are they?”
“They’re centuries-old vampires, who’ll want the debt paid against their confinement. I’d guess they’ll be pissed,” Damon answers.
Bonnie snorts. “In other words, you have no idea.”
“Bonnie,” Jeremy says, turning towards his girlfriend. “Can we just solve the problem, not antagonize Damon?”
Elena feels the ricochet of surprise through Damon’s body at her brother’s words, and she holds on to him more tightly as she says, “I’m going with Damon later, to talk to Elijah. We wanted to tell you, because it affects all of you and because you’ve been with us through all of this. If you don’t want any part in it, we understand-we understand-“ she emphasizes when Damon’s mouth opens, and she’s sure he’s going to try to shame them all into helping. She puts her hand over his mouth and continues. “We just wanted you to know, so you could make the choice for yourself.”
“Is anyone planning on finally killing Katherine in all this? Because, if not, I’d like that job.” Everyone turns to look at Caroline as she crosses her arms over her chest. “What? I still owe her. And besides, I’m pissed about Stefan. He’s been out there for ten months, you guys. We need to get him back.”
Damon’s fingers encircle Elena’s wrist, pulling her hand away from his face. “So, Vampire Barbie’s in?”
Caroline's eyes meet Damon’s squarely and she nods her head. “Hell, yeah.”
“Wait,” Bonnie puts her hand up. “Who is going to stay and make sure Elena’s safe?”
In the past, this would be the moment where Elena rolled her eyes and stomped her foot about her rights and privileges and how she was sick and tired of them all going to bat for her.
But today it’s entirely different; both her reaction, and the answer to Bonnie’s question.
“I’m going to stay with her,” Damon says.
It’s amusing, really, watching all of their reactions. Alaric smothers a smile beneath his hand and his eyes glance off Elena’s before he looks innocently up at the ceiling. Jeremy nods his head like that’s the only acceptable answer. Caroline sits up straighter, looking around like maybe she heard him wrong. Bonnie slowly stands up, and it’s this gesture that Elena thinks she will never recover from: her small but fierce best friend says, “You’re damn right you are.” Damon’s head tips in silent challenge, and then Bonnie takes it further. “Nobody outside this room can know about the baby until Klaus is dead.”
“Well, Elijah and Katherine already know,” Damon says. “So nobody besides them, and us.”
Elena tugs on his hand. “Lydia knows.”
“Lydia?” Bonnie asks.
“My roommate, at Duke.”
“Elena will have to go to a doctor, too,” Alaric pipes up.
“Damon can go with her and compel the doctor and anyone else at the place not to tell anyone,” Caroline suggests.
“I can compel Lydia, too,” Damon says.
“You’re not compelling Lydia!”
“Elena-“ He turns towards her, smirk firmly in place.
“You’re not, but we’ll argue about that later,” she says, huffily dragging her hand out of his to show her displeasure.
Ric stands up, and all the attention shifts to him for a moment. “So, Damon will be with Elena here or at Duke-because that’s the most important thing, that she go on with school and life as though absolutely nothing has changed-and Caroline and I will go with Elijah and Katherine.”
“Ric, I don’t know if-“ Damon starts, but Ric lifts his hand, showing Damon the ring Elena gave back to him not long after John passed away.
“I’m going,” Ric states, and Damon doesn’t argue it further.
Jeremy opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, Damon directs, “Then Jeremy and Bonnie will stay here, and be on top of everything in Mystic Falls, since I won’t be here.” Elena watches while her boyfriend looks into her little brother’s eyes, and if she didn’t know better she might think he was compelling Jeremy. “I need you, here, man, in case anything happens. We need a sentinel.”
Jeremy clenches his teeth, but then he nods, as if he understands. “I’ll do it, whatever you need.”
“Good,” Damon says with another authoritative nod. “It’s decided. Caroline and Ric, come to the Boarding House tonight; Elijah will be there with his plan, and possibly a few other Originals for us to meet.”
Elena has the irreverent thought pass through her head that she really wants to say Merry Christmas! to lighten the mood, but she refrains. Damon wraps his arms around her, hugging her while their friends and family watch. She just closes her eyes and presses her face against his chest.
Whatever happens now, her job is to protect their child. She finds that of all the things she never asked for that happened to her anyway, this is the one she can most look forward to. Her mother told her once that there is nothing like holding your child for the first time in your arms. Elena already has a vivid fantasy of that moment for herself, and she isn’t going to let Klaus take that from her. It will only happen because of the people in this room; she feels so blessed to have such good friends who will step up to help in a situation like this. She pulls away from Damon and looks at each of them. “I love you guys,” she says. “So much. Thank you. Thank you for helping me, for helping us.”
Tears shimmer in Bonnie’s eyes and Caroline states the obvious. “What else would we do?”
Chapter Six: The Gospel According to St. Stefan