"Damon, are you asleep?"

"Uh-huh."

"Wake up."

"Uh-huh."

"Wake up. I want to talk to you."

Damon rolled onto his stomach, propped himself on his elbows and looked at her. They were having a picnic lunch on the park surrounding the Mystic Falls Town Hall. Damon and Elena were sharing one blanket. All were enjoying the drowsy sunshine of an early-spring day.

They had made a trip to Los Angeles to settle their affairs. Elena had resigned from her position but she had secured a job at Mystic Falls Hospital. Starting after Easter, she would be working as the ER physician at Mystic Falls Hospital. She had also rented out her apartment in LA. Most of the furniture had been given away. Only a few pieces had been shipped to Mystic Falls.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked now, catching her around her bare ankle and massaging the sensitive spot with a decadent thumb.

The muscles of her leg twitched. "Stop, Damon, I have something to say."

"So do I. You have outrageously sexy ankles." His mouth curved into a smile. "And other sexy things as well, and I have a leech for you that won't quit." He caught her Achilles tendon between his teeth. 'Want to make love out here under the trees?"

His hand slid under her jean leg to squeeze her calf. She didn't draw her foot away, but Damon could see that something else was on her mind. He withdrew his hand. "What did you want to tell me?" he asked seriously. Sometimes his sensitivity to her moods was uncanny. That was only one of the reasons Elena loved him.

"We have been married for a month."

"I hadn't even thought of that," he said, sitting up.

"I have a present for you." She took an envelope out of the picnic basket and handed it to him. "I'm not sure you will like it."

He watched her for an endless minute and she recognized that look. She knew that look. She had seen how Damon dealt with his business. Decisive and in control. But this was different. She really was afraid he wouldn't like her gift.

Damon slowly raised the flap of the envelope. There was a single sheet of letter-sized paper inside. He withdrew the paper and read the content.

"I know it may be too quick for you," she said softly and nervously. "You may not be ready. But…" She paused and took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant."

Her heart stopped when his head jerked up to look at her. But then she saw his eyes and they were glassy with emotion.

"You are pregnant?"

She nodded.

Damon laughed. "Oh, God!" He clasped her hand tightly. "I'm going to be a father!"

He moved across the blanket and folded his hands around her head, linking his fingers in the back. He drew her mouth beneath his and their tongues exchanged intimacies.

"I was going to wait until we went out to dinner tonight, but…"He took a box from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

"Oh, Damon!" she exclaimed, wiping tears of love from her eyes. "You brought me a present!"

"How could I forget we have been married for a month?"

She tossed away the wrapping paper and found a jeweller's box, this one long, slender and flat. Lying golden and beautiful on a white satin lining was a smooth oval locket on a long chain.

Reverently, Elena lifted it out and sprung the delicate hinge open. In one of the tiny frames was a reduced picture of her and Damon taken by his brother at their wedding. They were smiling radiantly, their heads close, their happiness with each other enviable. In the other frame was a picture of them on the beach in Hawaii during their honeymoon.

Elena couldn't speak for the tentacles of emotion that squeezed her throat.

"It is inscribed," Damon said quietly. On the back was engraved, My wife, my love. Your Damon.

Taking the locket from her shaking fingers, he slipped it over her head and watched it nestle between her breasts.

Elenalifted the locket to her lips and kissed it, then pressed it back onto the setting it seemed made for. "I love you so much it hurts sometimes."

This time, when their mouths met, their bodies did as well. They reclined together on the blanket. His hand slipped under her cotton sweater and found her braless breasts full and warm and vibrant with love. He pushed her sweater up and gazed at the patterns of sunlight and shadow that danced across them. He lowered his head and let his lips drift over them as lightly and lazily as the sunbeams.

"Damon, we can't."

"Why not?"

"We are in the park." Her voice had lost some of its impetus as a result of the agile tongue that circled her nipples.

"Couldn't care less."

Elena laughed. Her mouth rubbed invitingly against his. "Do you want a boy or a girl?"

"I don't really care as long as the baby is healthy." His grin was the rakish, overconfident one that she adored. "If we have a girl this time, then I will give you baby boy next time. But if we have a boy this time, then I will give you a baby girl next time."

He worked his hand between them and unzipped first her jeans, then his. Willingly she let him adjust their clothing. Heartbeats later she felt his virility, hard and velvety warm, moving against her, seeking. "Haven't I always told you that I can't get my hands off you? We will have plenty of opportunities to make babies."

Elena laughed out loud.

"Have I told you that I love you?" Damon said as he kissed her nose.

She had to admit that he had, since he found her warm and moist and swollen with desire for his loving.

"Elena. My dearest, dearest love. You are all I ever needed."

And he always knew the right words to say.

THE END