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It took a few moments for her words to sink in, and when they did Dracula was literally shocked back into being human, his fangs receding and the blood rage abating.

"What?"

"You heard me. I said yes, I said we can have a child; I will bear you one and then…well we'll see how it goes after that, but one, I can agree to one." Agatha was frightened by the very thought of it, yet she had conquered her fear before, and her mind was capable of unpicking that most of her fear was irrational at best.

She was undead, she couldn't die in childbirth. Dracula was not her father, if anything he would want to be more involved with the babe's upbringing than Agatha did herself; she would probably need to fight him to get some one on one time with their child. She wouldn't be alone, trapped with half a dozen children demanding her everything, every day and night, until her patience finally snapped. History was not going to repeat itself.

"You…you've changed your mind, you want to do this?" Dracula couldn't help but ask, stepping closer as he examined Agatha's face for any hint of enchantment or trickery.

"I've changed my mind yes, as for the other bit, well want is a strong word. I want to make you happy, I want to stop allowing fear to make my life choices for me, that's a start."

For a moment Dracula had been so close to having everything, his whole world had opened up, and then it had crashed and burned in front of him. "No."

"No?" Of all the things Agatha had ever expected, it had not been that Dracula would be the one to refuse. "I don't understand I thought this was what you wanted?" She added, unable to keep the hurt and confusion completely from her voice. "I thought it would make you happy?"

"How could I be happy knowing I had forced you into a situation that in any other circumstance you wouldn't want?" Dracula shook his head. "No, I won't do it, and you cannot make me."

"Make you?!" Agatha spluttered giving into the urge to punch his arm and force him around to face her.

"Now you listen here Count Dracula, this wasn't an easy thing for me to say, let alone even think about. I have spent all of my adult life being afraid of something, because of what I experienced as a child. I tell you I am finally ready to move forward, to stop letting that trauma control the choices we make, about our lives, and you dare to tell me no!"

"You don't want to have my child." Dracula shook his head. "It is not fair to you, and certainly not fair to the child, to have a mother that didn't even want to carry it…"

"Now you…Grrrrr." Agatha couldn't help but get mad, this time pushing his shoulder and forcing him back a step.

"How dare you accuse me of being a bad mother! Haven't I been there every damn step for the kin you created, haven't I nurtured and taught them, protected them, loved them, even if every single one was practically an insult directed straight at me. I didn't want or even plan for them but I still give them my best. How could you think I would treat my own child as some sort of obligation?!"

"Agatha…"

"No, you complete arse, you don't get to speak. I may be frightened about being pregnant and giving birth, and I have every right to fear that, you know I do. But just because I have wanted to avoid exposing myself to that, does not mean I would resent the child, that I wouldn't be able to love it just as well as any other mother would!"

Of all the things Agatha had taken offence to, Dracula never expected she would seize on that; accuse him of being ungrateful yes, accuse him of misunderstanding her almost definitely, but take offence over her relationship to a child that wasn't even conceived yet?

"I…I don't understand." Dracula finally admitted, Agatha had taken him on an emotional rollercoaster this evening, from leaving him at the castle with no word as to where she had gone, to tonight's conversation and this revelation; he was just about done in.

"Then listen to exactly what I am saying, not what you think I am saying, or are afraid I am not saying." Agatha did her best to rein her temper back in.

"I want to give you a child, yes I am afraid of carrying that child, but that is something you will help me get over. Once it is here, I promise I will love and care for it just as you will. I will not resent it for 'ruining my life' or being forced on me, because it will have done neither of those things. I am choosing to do this. It will be a part of us, how could I do anything but want it?"

"So…so you are not just doing this because you know it will make me happy, because you feel guilty?" Dracula had to ask, he had to be sure.

"I am doing this because I think it will make us happy." Agatha insisted, watching as the tentative hope that was in Dracula's eyes suddenly bloomed all over his face.

Laughing in sheer joy, Dracula scooped her up, spinning Agatha around before he lost his balance and they both tumbled in a mess of tangled limbs to the floor.

"And I was the one who had to take dance lessons." Agatha snorted from her awkward position, half on and half off of Dracula's torso. Squeaking slightly in surprise as Dracula turned them and she suddenly found herself against the grass with him hovering above her.

He was almost too nervous to ask, reaching over to tuck Agatha's hair behind her ear, as he often did when he was gathering his thoughts, unsure just how to vocalise something that involved his deepest feelings. "So, you mean we could…now…or in the future? I mean if you wanted to wait…"

Hooking her fingers into gap between the buttons on his shirt, Agatha tugged Dracula closer, leaning up she brushed her lips against his. "We can wait if you are feeling stage fright, otherwise Count you have my permission to rush your nun." She added teasingly.

It was a good job she didn't need to breath, Dracula's lips crushed hers beneath his own, and he pressed her down into their earthy bed. Her clothes, well it was a good job it was dark, as Agatha doubted, they were going to survive the mauling Dracula's claws were giving them, it seemed now permission was given, he was determined to strip her naked in record time.

Giving as good as she got, Agatha ripped his shirt open, running her hands up over the parts of his chest she could reach, the parts that weren't pressing down against her own torso. The sudden cool air against her naked flesh caused it to goosebump, and there was a draft where there had never been one before, as Dracula parted her thighs and ducked down to tease her into a frenzy.

Lovely…if anything Agatha tasted better than ever, the tinge of blood merely enhancing the experience, not that Dracula ever resented going down on his lover. She was so wonderfully responsive when he did this, and hearing Agatha make those noises because of him, well that was never going to get old. Yet as wonderful as it was to have Agatha panting, and squirming under his mouth, this was not how Dracula planned on finishing off the evening.

Even though it was hurried, Dracula couldn't contain the desperate need to be inside her, a desire he often felt but never like this. This was different, this was special, and perhaps later in his bedroom there would be time for more elaborate love making, right now he just wanted to fuck a baby into her. He ripped open the fly of his jeans, already so damn hard. Dracula crawled back up her torso, pausing long enough to meet Agatha's gaze and confirm yet again, that he hadn't imagined this whole thing, that she really meant for them to make a child.

"Yes…please yes." Agatha rubbed herself against him, bare breasts to his furred chest, wrapping her long legs about his hips as Dracula positioned himself to take her, groaning loudly as he pushed inside.

There was no going back now, no changing her mind. Not that her mind was in anyway capable to coherent thought, as Dracula set them a pace that for mortals would be unsustainable. This was going to be a sprint to the finish. One of many such encounters Agatha didn't doubt.

"Later I…will worship…every inch of…you." Dracula grunted, rutting into her as deeply as he could, his nails digging into her hips and leaving marks, marks he would kiss better later. Later…he would make love to her properly, but for now he just needed to fuck his seed into her belly, to fill her up until she couldn't take anymore.

Mewling Agatha met him thrust for thrust, arching her back to gain more traction, and force him deeper. Already she could feel the tremor in her tensed thighs, the jerk of a muscle spasm in her calf, as the pleasure prickled out from her centre…so close…so close.

"I love you…so…much…" Dracula whispered against her flesh, pressing his face into her neck. Unable to resist, when Agatha stretched her neck out like that, feeling his fangs descend as he nipped at her flesh. He could almost feel her mental urging pushing him on.

"Yes." Agatha groaned, her hand in his hair, tugging him closer. Her nails raking sharply across his scalp.

Sinking his fangs into her neck, Dracula felt her orgasm hit a moment later, felt her body tense underneath him, then he felt it echo back through him, a raging fire he had no hope in hell of controlling. That sneaky bitch, she'd done it again…

Coming with a curse on his lips, Dracula jerked like a marionette whose strings had just been wrenched about and then cut, he collapsed as a dead weight on top her, the aftershocks shuddering through them both. After what seemed like a century had passed Dracula finally managed enough coordination to roll off to the side, staring up like a fool into the starry sky above them.

That had been a hot mess from start to finish.

Pressing her hand to her heart, Agatha was surprised to find it wasn't thundering, it still lay there silent in her breast, because right now it felt like her blood was rushing through her veins. Or perhaps it was that every nerve in her body was alive and every muscle twitching. It seemed ironic that it was in her undead state that Agatha had never felt more alive.

"Please tell me we can do that again?" Dracula groaned as normal feeling finally returned to his extremities.

"Well I would expect we would need to, babies don't make themselves." Agatha tried for humour, even if it came out sounding rather breathy.

Turning onto his side, Dracula placed his hand on her stomach, staring down at it in wonder. It was possible they had just made a child. Their child, his and Agatha's child. If he could go back over a hundred years and tell himself about this, Dracula knew he would never believe himself. This was a miracle he had never dreamed possible.

"You know it might not happen straight away." Agatha watched him carefully, soaking in Dracula's childlike joy, not wanting to dampen it but not wanting to disappoint him either.

Tilting his head up to meet her gaze, Dracula waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "All the more fun for us then."

"I mean this time, it might not happen. It might take us years."

"I know, but it might not. You might be conceiving even now." Dracula was content to be the optimist between them in this. They had broken all the odds in every other part of their lives, why should procreation be any different. "Let us savour the anticipation at least."

Covering Dracula's hand with her own, Agatha allowed his positivity to infect her too, even if only for the moment, there would be time enough for reality later. For now they lay there side by side, snuggling against the chill of the night air, sharing a tentative dream of their child that might be, as the stars of Dracula's ancestors cast their celestial light down upon them.

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