Salvatore

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

Damon Salvatore was once a man who vowed to take care of his little girl, to protect her and to ensure that she would receive the best upbringing possible. He promised her this the moment he held her in his arms, though it was a promise her would prove to break within a short four years of raising her. A decision that would forever traumatize the little girl he swore he would never do wrong by. Little Charlotte was only four years old when Damon made the decision that he could not care for his little girl; a cold winter morning, when he dressed her in the warmest coat she had, before driving to the little house Stefan had been living in across the country. He would leave her on the porch, placing a final kiss on her forehead before using his vampire speed to get away from his daughter as fast as he possibly could.

He would feel no emotion as Stefan would answer the door to find a child standing in front of him, without a parent or an adult in sight. Her Uncle Stefan, despite not seeing her for three and a half years, would instantly recognize the doe-eyed girl that stood before him. Her strong Salvatore features were a dead giveaway, if it were not for the blue eyes that matched her father's. Stefan would rush the confused girl inside, who had not known who the strange man in front of her was, and Damon would turn his back against them. He would walk along the street, feeling nothing, as he left his daughter with his brother.

Stefan never knew why his brother left her on his doorstep that day; nor would he find out the reason for many years to come. But regardless of why, Stefan raised the girl as if she were his own, and he did with no hesitation, not even a hint of doubt. It was scary for him because he never had the responsibility of a child, especially one that was only half-human at that – but he did it anyway. Little Charlotte was his family, and she needed him. So, he was there to pick up the pieces of a four-year-old's broken heart that her father caused, and he had no problems in doing so. He was there for all the milestones her father missed, and he made sure that he made those moments as special as he possibly could for her.

He taught her how to ride a bike and was always there to put the band-aid on her knee whenever she scraped it as a result, which ultimately ended with Stefan doing ridiculous things just to put a smile on her face. He dropped her off at school for the very first time with a backpack that too big for her, and with every house they moved into, he painted her bedroom walls the brightest color of pink he could find just to see her excited grin. He raised her in a way that his father failed, with love, nurture, and safety. He did everything he could to make sure that she had an unforgettable childhood, all in determination to get her to not dwell on the why's and the how's about her father leaving her behind.

As the years went by, Stefan could not be prouder of the woman she had grown to become. At fifteen years old today, she was kind, polite and one of the smartest kids he had ever known – though he had not known many kids. She had her moments, and the teenaged girl challenged him as a parental figure every day, but he loved her more than life itself. She was his family, and he was hers. There were times, the inevitable times, where her heart was yearning for her real father, but then the young girl would remind herself – Damon was her father, but Stefan was her dad.

"Do you think you'll be open to public school?" Zach, a man who was her uncle's distant nephew, so she assumed that made him her distant cousin – but she did not really know how this whole thing worked. She had to lie to the general public about it, anyway, so there really was not point in trying to understand it.

"I don't see the point if I'm just going to move again. Stefan's too paranoid to stay in one spot for too long." Charlotte sighed to herself as she scribbled patterns on the edge of her math sheet with her overly sharp pencil. "Why are you asking, anyway? I thought you wanted Stefan and I to get out of here because of the attack on that couple yesterday."