Until This Lie Do Us Part

Chapter 21

When he was out of earshot, Stefan rubbed Elena's shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Elena nodded. "Yeah. Is Lily ready?" she asked, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Stefan nodded. "Yep. Come on, you can help me get her bags" he told her, leading her to a staircase.

"Bags?" Elena asked, following him. "How many does she have?" It was a two night stay, after all.

"When I left her room a few minutes ago, she had six. I'm willing to bet that she has packed at least two more since then" he smiled, pulling Elena under his arm as they walked side by side.

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Stefan logged off of his computer and smiled when he heard laughter coming from upstairs. Elena had agreed to occupy Lily while he got a little bit of work done. It seemed that they were having plenty of fun without him as he climbed the stairs. Their laughter continued. Stefan pushed the door open to Lily's room and found it to be dark, except for the two lamps that provided some light in the room.

Stefan smiled when he saw the makeshift fort in the middle of the bedroom. Blankets and sheets were hung over chairs. There was even a colorful piece of paper hung on the front of the fort stating that no boys were allowed. He could hear Elena reading to Lily. But what touched him the most was hearing Elena encourage Lily to read to her and helping her when she got stuck. Then Lily and Elena would giggle before going back to reading.

"No boys allowed?" Stefan asked, making his presence known.

"No!" Lily and Elena both shouted.

"That's too bad. I guess you don't want the cookies downstairs that I baked earlier" he said.

He heard mumbling and he thought it might be Elena and Lily discussing. "Okay Uncle Stefan" he heard Lily say. "You can come in if you bring the cookies with you" she negotiated.

Stefan grinned as he walked towards the fort and pulled the sheet open to look in. He could see Elena and Lily huddled together with a book open. "How about you go and get the cookies while I wait here and kiss Elena?" he suggested.

Lily's eyes got big. "Eew yucky!" she screeched, crawling out of the fort and running out of the room.

"Great. You've scarred her for life" Elena laughed.

Stefan moved into the fort, advancing on Elena before she could protest. "Good" he smiled, kissing her. "Boys shouldn't be a problem then" he added.

"You're terrible" Elena mumbled against his lips.

"So I've heard" he replied, pushing her backwards into the blankets as he kissed down her neck. Elena counted the minutes in her head, trying to decide when to stop her make out session with Stefan. Lily beat her to it.

"Are you done kissing?" Lily asked cautiously from outside the room.

Elena pushed on Stefan's chest and sat up, fixing her shirt in the process. "Yep, all done" Elena called out to her.

Lily padded into the room and approached with the plate of chocolate chip cookies. Stefan grabbed it from her as she crawled in and found her spot next to Elena again. Stefan passed them out and everyone remained in a comfortable silence.

"Uncle Stefan, when is Elena gonna have a baby in her tummy?" she asked, munching away on her cookie.

Stefan and Elena both choked on the cookie they were eating. "What?" Stefan asked her, his eyes wide with worry.

"When is Elena gonna have a baby in her tummy?" Lily repeated, turning to pat Elena's stomach. "David in my class said that when you kiss a girl, a baby goes in her tummy" she explained to him.

"Well, that's not quite how it works" Stefan said, clearly uncomfortable with this topic.

"Then how does the baby get in Elena's tummy?" she asked, turning her full attention to Stefan.

"Oh God, it's happening" Stefan said, wiping the sweat off of his head. He thought he wouldn't have to have this conversation with Lily until ... never.

Elena found the entire situation hilarious, but she decided to put Stefan out of his misery. "Lily, honey, there isn't going to be a baby in my tummy any time soon" she assured her.

"Why not?" Lily asked.

"Because ... because I have to finish school" Elena answered.

"Okay" Lily nodded. "So when you finish school, how is the baby going to get in your tummy?" she asked.

Elena cursed inside her head. The kid was relentless. "Well ..." Elena trailed off.

"Two people have to really love each other" Stefan explained, knowing it was very far from the truth in some instances. Elena smiled at Stefan's answer.

"But you do really love Elena" Lily said sincerely as she looked up at Stefan with her big brown eyes. "And Elena loves you" she added.

Stefan's eyes met Elena's for a moment before she looked away. "Yeah, but then both people have to really want a baby" he said, feeling guilty because he knew that he would probably never want one. "Hey, how about you go downstairs and grab a couple of juice boxes" Stefan said, deciding he was done trying to explain what he couldn't. The fact that he knew Elena wanted children and a real marriage and he didn't.

"Okay" she said, putting her cookie in her mouth and crawling out of the fort.

As soon as Lily left the room, Stefan cursed under his breath. "I really wish she would ask her father about this stuff" Stefan sighed.

Elena smiled. "It's okay. She's just curious" she said. "Maybe tomorrow night she'll ask about drugs" Elena smirked.

"Very funny" Stefan said, though he did smile. He fell back on the blankets and closed his eyes. Then he opened his eyes in alarm. "We're ... not at risk of ... putting a baby in your tummy, are we?" he asked, using Lily's words carefully.

Elena laughed. "No. Trust me, no" she assured him. "I'm being careful in that department" she added. Very careful, because the last thing she needed in her life right now was to be pregnant.

Stefan sighed. "Good to know" he replied.

Elena patted his stomach before resting her head on his chest. "We should get a puppy though" she told him.

"No" Stefan said flatly. "It will piss all over my Persian rug and eat my good shoes" he stated.

"Good" she said. "That rug is ugly and you need new shoes."

"Elena?" Stefan asked. "Stop talking with Caroline. She's rubbing off on you" he told her.

Elena simply smiled. So maybe she had been talking to Caroline on the phone a little more often. It was nice to have some girl talk every now and then. "It's nice to do girl talk" she told him.

"I could totally do girl talk too" he told her. "Like, did you see what that girl was wearing? That was so like, two months ago. Like, OMG" he said in his best valley girl voice he could come up with.

Elena laughed as she sat up. "You are too much sometimes" she told him, shaking her head.

"And, like, that guy? He was totally pretending not to look at me, but he totally like so was" he continued.

"I'm going to help Lily" Elena said, crawling out of the tent.

"Like, seriously? OMG Elena" he called after her, increasing the valley girl accent. He heard Elena laugh though as she left the room. He stared up at the top of the fort, enjoying the temporary quiet. But, he realized, it was too quiet.

And then, he heard Lily's shrieking call, calling out Elena's name in panic.