Disclaimer: I do not own the Time Traveler's Wife or The Vampire Diaries.

The first time his boy disappears, Giuseppe's not there. He's not there the last time, either.

Or, five times Giuseppe can't deal with his Traveling son and the one time that he does.

Damon is 6

Giuseppe is sitting in his home office, working on paperwork from the law firm when he hears his wife scream in horrified surprise. His sharp blue eyes look up from behind his glasses and he gathers his feet from underneath him and launches himself up and sprints through his door. Giuseppe runs down the hall and arrives in Damon's doorway to see Victoire kneeling on the ground with her arms wrapped around Damon's little form, shaking.

"What happened?" He barks and tries not to wince at the volume of his own voice. When Victoire doesn't look up, he snaps, "Victoire! Che cosa è successo?"

He can't help but revert to his native language when stressed; his accent slips on occasions when he's irritated, but he must be furious to yell in Italian.

His French wife looks up and wipes her green eyes with the backs of her hands. "He just disappeared, Giuseppe, he just disappeared and came back!"

"What?" Giuseppe thinks he's misheard.

"Il a tout simplement disparu, je ne sais pas ce qui s'est passé , » Victoire slips into her own tongue as well.

Giuseppe looks at his son staring up at him with the eyes that they share and he kneels next to him, taking Damon's slim shoulders into his palms, "Where did you go, Damon?"

"I met my little brother," Damon says blinking owlishly.

"You don't have a little brother," Giuseppe nearly growls. He's confused and a million thoughts are flying through his head; too many to keep track of.

"I will," Damon says it so self-assuredly that Giuseppe almost believes him.

As it is, Giuseppe dismisses both his wife and son, making himself believe that they'd both been imagining things do to the late hour.

Damon is 6; three days later

Giuseppe is in his office again, balancing the books this time, when he hears Damon enter his office. The little boy closes the door quietly, just as he was taught, and he comes and slips into the chair sitting across from Giuseppe's large oak desk.

"Daddy?" Damon asks.

"Dad," Giuseppe absent mindedly corrects, "You're not a bambino anymore, Damon."

"Dad," Damon says and Giuseppe sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose, briefly closing his eyes. When he opens them again, he sees Damon looking at him innocently.

"What is it, Damon?" He asks tiredly, "I have to work."

His little boy opens his mouth and disappears in thin air.

Startled, Giuseppe blinks once. Twice.

Damon's still gone, but he notices that there's a pile of the clothes he'd been wearing four seconds ago on the chair. Giuseppe stands slowly and his quick blue eyes sweep his office and they narrow when he can't find Damon.

"Damon, come out now," He snaps, "I'm not playing any games with you this afternoon. I will start counting. One. Two. Three."

On the fifth second, Damon reappears standing behind his chair. Giuseppe grips his chest in shock and he nearly falls back into his chair.

Damon peers at him curiously.

"What – what- where did you go?" Giuseppe feels compelled to ask.

Damon's eyes narrow, "Are you going to believe me now?"

Giuseppe only nods once, quickly and sharply.

Damon smiles then, and says, "I met Mama in the future; she was gardening with baby Stefan."

Giuseppe's heart stutters, but he believes Damon this time. "Go run along; find your mother and play with her for the afternoon, alright Damon?"

Damon nods and scoops up his clothes, springing away. As soon as he's gone, Giuseppe sits back at his desk and immediately picks up his date book and the phone; he'll call every specialist in the world if he has to, but Giuseppe will find a way to fix his son.

Damon is 7

When Victoire announces she's pregnant, Giuseppe still finds himself surprised. They find an OB/GYN – one of the best, and nineteen weeks in, they find out that it's a boy.

While Giuseppe was with Victoire for every step of the way when she was pregnant with Damon, he finds himself only going to one out of every five appointments for this baby. He's busy talking to doctors and scientists, trying to find someone, anyone that might have done research something similar to Damon's . . . problem. He finally finds a geneticist, a man called Dr. Kendrick. Giuseppe calls him and explains the situation and at first the doctor says nothing.

"I thought it was a once in a century mutation," Dr. Kendrick finally says.

"What?" Giuseppe demands.

"I met a man – several times in fact – who could travel through time. It's a genetic disorder that we called Chrono-Displacement. It's a mutation in the genes and is hereditary once it's formed. The man I met eventually had a daughter who was Traveling from the time of her birth. I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone else with the same disorder as those two," Dr. Kendrick explained.

"Is it curable?" Giuseppe demands.

The doctor sighs, "No."

Furious, Giuseppe slams the phone down in its cradle and rubs his face with his hands tiredly.

"Giuseppe?" Victoire asks from the door. Giuseppe looks up at his wife who's rubbing her 28 week pregnant belly. "What did you find out?"

"It can't be cured," Giuseppe hisses, "It's some sort of genetic mutation called Chrono-Displacement and it can't be cured."

Victoire sighs, but nods firmly a moment later. "Then we'll deal with it."

"Deal with it?" Giuseppe asks incredulously. The vein on his forehead is throbbing and he can feel a migraine building up behind his eyes. "Our son is a freak of nature! He'll never be normal or lead a normal life! How do you deal with something like this?"

Victoire's lips thin and her hands automatically cradle their unborn son as if to protect him. "We'll deal with it," She repeats more firmly.

Giuseppe's eyes shoot down to the unborn boy and they widen, "What if . . ." He swallows thickly, "What if he's just like Damon?"

"Then we'll love him just the same. Honestly," Victoire spits, "What is the matter with you? They're your sons, and if you don't get yourself together . . ." She never finishes her sentence, choosing instead to storm out of the office.

But Giuseppe knows what she would have said; it hangs in the silence, looming over him forebodingly.

Damon is 14 and 33

Giuseppe eventually calls Dr. Kendrick back to get specifics about Damon's disorder. He finds out several things; stress and alcohol can cause Damon to Travel, but exercise and being occupied can keep him grounded in a single time period.

Still, he can Travel at any time, and they're unpredictable too.

Giuseppe keeps an eye on Stefan starting from the time of his birth to make sure the child doesn't have the same genetic disorder. When he's seven years old, a year older than when Damon first started to Travel, Giuseppe lets up. He and his wife have become distant with each other, and it gets worse the more Giuseppe searches for a cure and simultaneously pushes his family away from him.

Then the accident happens.

Victoire is killed on impact; Stefan receives a head injury; Damon is nearly unscathed, having Traveled at the last second before the semi impacted Giuseppe's classic BMW.

Giuseppe gets the call while he's at work one snowy day.

"Is this Giuseppe Salvatore?"

"Yes, this is he," Giuseppe says, frowning.

"My condolences on your loss; your wife and your two sons were in a car accident on the road three hours ago. Your wife, Victoire, was killed immediately and your sons are in the hospital. We need you to come down at once," The EMT says quietly, his voice soothing.

Giuseppe's vision tunnels and it takes an associate shaking his shoulder to wake him back up into the real world.

"I'm coming," He hears himself mumble. He can't for the life of him remember how he drove to Mystic Falls' only major hospital.

"Where are they?" He demands as soon as he's been identified, "Dove sono?"

"This way, sir," A young nurse leads Giuseppe to a two person room where Damon and Stefan are lying in hospital beds. Damon is staring at the TV blankly, and Stefan is fast asleep, whatever pain medicine they have him on knocking him out.

Giuseppe says nothing as he walks slowly over to their beds, standing motionless in between them. He stares at his children.

It doesn't sink in that his wife is dead until Stefan is released from the hospital and Giuseppe is driving them home. There's a missing person from their little family, and her absence is painful.

The weeks following are full of funeral plans and avoidance; Giuseppe does both. He hardly sees either of his sons unless he's yelling at them for a mess, and he knows that Damon will probably never forgive him for smacking him straight across the face.

Stefan bursts into tears and Damon hurries the seven year old away, glaring nastily at their father. Giuseppe sighs heads back towards his office, but detours towards Victoire's art room. The French woman had been a stay at home mother who painted and gardened, and had one room special for her art.

Giuseppe opens the door a little and steps inside, and just stares.

"She was an amazing artist," A dry voice behind him says and Giuseppe whirls around to see an adult Damon standing there in a leather jacket, dark jeans and boots, and a white tee shirt while his hands are shoved into his pockets. The man's face is pale and angular; his eyes are a matching set to Giuseppe's own, while his dark hair has a distinct curl to the edges, reminding him painfully of Victoire.

"She was," Giuseppe says hoarsely.

Damon's icy eyes don't give anything away as they travel around the room, dancing from painting to painting.

"You end up stashing all of these in the attic, you know," He says finally, "But Stef and I pull a few when you move out to your old place in Venice."

"I move back?" Giuseppe asks, hardly daring to breathe as he watches this man who masquerades as his son.

"Yes," Damon nods his head and turns his attention to his father, "I'm really happy when you do; you're not an easy person to get along with."

Giuseppe can't help but chuckle blackly at that, "I know that. You think I don't know that? And you're just like me."

"I'm not," Damon snarls, "I'm not like you."

"Of course not," Giuseppe lets it go. A second later, Damon disappears, leaving his clothes in a pool where he'd been standing.

"Of course not," Giuseppe repeats.

Damon was 45

Giuseppe gets a call one day in Venice that his son was killed in a car accident.

He drinks himself into a stupor and stays drunk until the funeral two weeks later, which he finds out Stefan planned with help from Damon's wife, Elena. It's held in Mystic Falls and Damon's buried in one of the plots that Giuseppe bought when he and Victoire had first moved to Virginia all those years ago.

He looks at his grandkids that he's only met once each and it hurts to look at Damon's youngest boy; it hurts worse to know that he can't remember his name.

Giuseppe is an old man

The first time that Giuseppe meets one of Damon's Traveling selves while the man's actually been dead for years, he nearly drops in a dead faint. The boy that had popped in was only 7, and was smiling cheerily at his father.

"Hi Dad!" Damon beams.

"Hi son," Giuseppe says faintly.

"Where are we?" Damon asks a moment later, confused as he looks around Giuseppe's villa.

"Venice," Giuseppe finally gets out, "Where are you from?"

"Stefan was just born a couple of months ago and he won't stop crying, so Mama's really cranky and so are you," Damon explains, "Can I have something to eat?"

"Sure," Giuseppe says and leads the little boy into the kitchen, "Wait here while I get you a blanket or something." He finds a small throw blanket and tucks it around Damon's shoulders and makes the kid a peanut butter sandwich.

Damon eats it up and Giuseppe fidgets.

"You want to get some ice cream?" He finally asks and he can't help but smile at the brilliant smile that light up Damon's face.

"Yeah!"

"Alright," Giuseppe says and lets a small smile of his own appear on his lips, "What's your favorite this week?"

"Chocolate chip," Damon confides.

"Mine too," Giuseppe says, pretending to be surprised, "But before we go, I'm going to go see if I can't find you some clothes."

"No pink," Damon commands, "Because that's for girls."

"Of course not," Giuseppe says, "Absolutely no pink. But you'd better come up with me to make sure I don't pick up the wrong thing. My eyes are going bad, you know."

"Okay."

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