Forbidden Rapture

Ashli28

Told you I'd write a sequel whether you wanted me to or not – Mwuahahahaa, I'm not sure EXACTLY what it's about (I have a general idea lol) but I didn't know about the other one either, so I think I can cope with the winging it heh.

A/N I know UC Davis is in California (or at least I think it is heh) and Las Vegas is in Nevada (?) but assume the commute is easy by car – taking half an hour a day. Just pretend. Please?

There'll be quite a lot of Thea and Eric solely at the start, this is because I need to develop the story a bit before I get onto the main plot, it's not going straight into it like the other.

The night of Keller and Galen's wedding day, Thea and Eric went home. Not to Thierry's mansion, which had its left wing rebuilt, not to Galen's mansion, but to the place where they had been living since Blaise had been born: Eric's mother's house. It made Thea seem more normal somehow, living in her boyfriend's mother's house instead of at the charity of a vampire who had lived for thousands of years. Apparently she was alone in this way of thinking: Eric told her he was going insane. She believed him.

It had been a nice day, Thea thought with a smile, she had ended up giving Keller the necklace that Blaise had made, it suited her better than Thea – who rarely wore such elaborate jewellery – and since she and Eric hadn't bought them anything else, due to being busy with Blaise and trying to keep up with studying so that they could take the finals at Davis without even having gone to the school she felt that she should have it, the two couples got on exceptionally well, although Thea and Keller were so different, mainly because Galen and Eric were so alike. Eric was the best man at the wedding, so they had to give them something. They had taken Blaise, hoping she wouldn't cry, and she'd been as good as gold – unlike the real Blaise, who would have screamed the whole place down in her disgust of commitment to just one person for the rest of their lives – for a lot of the people there, it had been the first time they'd seen her. When she was asleep, they had cooed over what an adorable baby she was; when she had her eyes open, they debated about whether it was possible for a witch to be an old soul.

James, who had just returned with Poppy from their visitation with Poppy's parents, had thankfully not lived up to his threat to kill Eric, and Thea detected Poppy's influence in that. Poppy had done the most cooing, Thea was sure she was going to be broody, too bad she couldn't have kids.

In fact, Thea was sure most of the girls would be bothering their soulmates with their broodiness, and even a couple of the boys. The only girls with no interest had been Rashel, Jez and Keller. Gillian had exclaimed that she was going to kidnap the baby, Poppy had cooed, Hannah had demanded to hold her every other minute and Maggie had warned them both sufficiently to make sure the kid got a lot of exercise – in these canned-entertainment days, a child can never have too much soccer. Galen had just stared in adoration and turned to Keller, she had laughed and said they had their hands full with Malak – her little brother – never mind his ideas.

She was driving now, and it gave her a rush. Freedom to drive wherever she may wish, instead of lying in a hospital bed waiting for her baby to be born. Eric had drove them to the wedding, and she was driving them back, it was better that way – it meant they both had a turn looking after Blaise in the back. Their friends didn't believe that they actually fought over who was going to put her to bed and change her nappy and feed her – not saying 'I did it last time, you do it' but instead 'you got to do it last time, it's my turn!'

In fact, she didn't believe it either. What kind of crazy fools were they? She laughed.

"What's so funny?" Eric asked quietly, "is my singing that bad?"

He had been singing 'twinkle twinkle little star' with some versed that Thea was convinced he had probably made up as he went along. His singing wasn't that bad, it wasn't that good either, but she couldn't complain; even if he wasn't up to record-deal standard, she loved to hear his voice, in speech or song, it didn't matter which. She sighed heavenly; they were young, happy, with a beautiful daughter and wonderful family on his side, what more could they want?

"No, it's not your singing," Thea said truthfully, her own voice a whisper in case Blaise was asleep. She wished the former Blaise was still alive to see her, but if she really was Blaise reincarnated, Blaise couldn't have seen herself, it was paradox, would this baby have been born if Blaise didn't die? "It was the memory of Maggie's face when I told her we argued over who got the honour of changing Blaise's nappy each time…"

"We're terrible, aren't we?" Eric agreed in a sheepish voice, "I couldn't form a coherent sentence all day without using baby-talk. The other guys were teasing me for it."

"Poor baby," Thea said, sticking her lower-lip out in a mock expression of sadness, Eric – in the back – picked it up from the mirror and grinned. Neither cared about teasing from the others, they both got that. Thea had got a lot of it too when she talked about Blaise, when every word she spoke had something to do with Blaise. But why not? How could she ever go back to talking about bands and clothes? Impossible…

"Are you happy, Eric?" she asked abruptly. Maybe he wished that he was like the other guys, who's biggest concern was getting their soulmate to become vampires like them. Okay, he'd never have had that problem, but something mirroring it…

He understood what she meant, of course he did, they practically shared the same mind, connected through their souls in a way neither understood, in a way nobody understood, not even the elders, he blinked in surprise, "of course."

"Even though we have a baby to take care of for the next eighteen years, until we're thirty-six?"

"Especially because we have a baby to take care of for the next eighteen years," he said seriously, and Thea watched through the mirror as he raked a hand through his hair – his trademark of nervousness. He was going to ask something and wasn't sure whether he'd like the answer to it.

"Even though we're only eighteen ourselves?"

"Even though we're only eighteen…Thea, why? You're not…I mean, do you…you don't regret it, do you?"

Oh.

Goddess no.

"I regret a lot of things, Eric. But you and Blaise are not one of them," she assured him, "I'm so glad you didn't go and fall in love with Pilar."

Eric snorted. Not a malicious snort, not in anyway mean to Pilar, just a snort that he could ever love anyone but Thea, "I'm just glad someone told me there was a rattlesnake that day," he grinned, "so I could attempt to save your life and end up getting bitten."

"How very valiant, I'm sure you loved being bitten," she rolled her eyes.

"well, it meant you had to touch me to heal me…" before she could pretend to get angry, "and because of that, we found out we were soulmates, if it hadn't been for that…"

"You would have been in a mental institute after going madly insane and attempting to burn to school down, or suchlike," Thea finished, "just another toy for Blaise."

"Oh man…you shouldn't have said her name, Thea, she was asleep, when you said that her eyes just opened…" he pretended to be annoyed, but Thea could tell he was glad of a second time to rock her to sleep. He started singing again, and the whole weird conversation was forgotten.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Eric had taken Blaise out of her car seat to get her to sleep, even though he accepted fully that the gentle movement of the car would have lulled her to sleep, it filled him with a certain contentment to rock his daughter to sleep. Everything he had told Thea was true, he didn't regret a thing, even if he had to give up UC Davis, his dream of being a vet, and work in a convenience story, he would be perfectly happy.

Now, his legs had gone to sleep with Blaise resting on them, and they had pulled up outside his house and Thea was opening the door to his side, reaching for Blaise to take her from him so that he might be able to stand up. Reluctantly, he passed her over, then got out of the car himself, slamming the door. It was dark, but there were still plenty of people on his street. As soon as he got out, a light was flashed in his eyes, and he squinted.

"Hey! Eric!" someone on the other end of the light – a torch, Eric presumed – called, and Eric stepped out of the light so he could see again without being blinded. There was a bunch of people standing on the other side of the road: mostly guys but some girls. Now, a few of them jogged over to him and Thea, he could see their faces. One of them was Josh, a guy he had known from school, another Pilar, the others he knew from school but couldn't quite place – he'd been somewhat of a loner. Hopefully, after a minute or two of chitchat, he could go inside with no need to use their names.

"Hi, Josh," he said when they were close enough to talk to without shouting – thus waking Blaise – addressing only the one who had yelled him, "what you doing round here?"

"Well, you might not have noticed from all of the years we've known each other," Josh rolled his eyes, "but I live there. Where've you been, man? Haven't seen you forever! Davis, right?"

"Yeah, Davis," Eric agreed softly, wishing the guy would calm down and lower his voice.

"Why you whis…" he seemed to notice Thea for the same time, "Oh, sorry, didn't see you. You two are still dating? Wow, Eric's first girlfriend and still…" he trailed off when he noticed Blaise, "cute kid, your sister?"

Eric already had an arm around Thea's waist, now he squeezed her gently "our daughter."

"Your…?" Josh repeated, "oh, if someone like you can be irresponsible, we're all doomed. We're all gonna have squawking kids," he sighed, as though it was one of the terrible truths of the universe.

"Actually," Thea said with a gentle smile, "we planned to have Blaise."

It was as far away from the truth as it possibly could be, but it might as well have been true for the volume at which they loved their daughter.

"Blaise…you named her after your sister?" Josh asked, smiling, most people at their high school had thought – despite their differences – Thea and Blaise were sisters, "wow…haven't seen her around for a while either, she owes me a date, maybe I should call her…"

"I wouldn't," Thea said. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but there was so much pain behind it Eric had to wince, "she was murdered a few months ago."

"Oh man…I'm sorry…" Josh really seemed contrite, but Eric had already started moving Thea towards the door, "we've got to go, Josh. Talk to you sometime."

"Yeah…uh sure…" the guy called back, turning away to his friends.

"You okay?" Eric whispered.

"Sure. I think I'm almost getting over her death," Thea said, and he could tell that she was lying, "but did you see the way Pilar looked crestfallen when you told them Blaise was our daughter? She still likes you."

He laughed shortly, "I doubt it, but it wouldn't matter even if she did. Because I. Love. You."