Chapter 28 – Pregnancy Tests

Shane's POV

We arrived home in no time, and when we got there it was like we'd never left. Everything looked just as it had before we left for the TPU library and, more importantly, it still smelled of chilli.

"Home sweet home," I sighed and melted into the sofa when we reached the living room. Claire joined me and together we took up the entire couch.

Michael and Eve sat in Michael's chair and the vampires sat at the table hidden away at the side of the room.

"So what did I miss?" Hannah asked us all. She was standing beside the sofa and smiling down at Claire.

"Um, well... I'm, well, I'm..."

"Claire's pregnant!" Eve said, and Hannah's eyes suddenly widened.

"Wow... How far gone?"

"That specific detail is not one that we have unfortunately," Myrnin said as he observed his hands.

"That's a good point," I said, "I'll run to the chemist and get a pregnancy test."

"You really don't need to do that..." Claire replied, but I didn't let her finish.

"We need to know Claire. We need to be prepared."

She nodded her head and smiled up at me, "Be careful."

"I will."

We were in Morganville after all.

Claire's POV

I didn't know whether he believed that the smile was real or if he had just become a very good actor during the time that we had been away. It didn't matter though; he didn't confront me about it. He just left.

"Oh, this is getting exciting!" Miranda squealed and waved her hands in the air.

"I didn't notice that one, I must admit," Hannah said quietly to me, "Who is she?"

"Miranda."

"And Miranda is?"

"It's complicated – more like the ending of a book rather than the summary."

She nodded her head in understanding and smiled over at Miranda.

"So? What else happened while you guys were away?"

"Well, to summarise it," I said, "Amelie was possessed and we went to the TPU library to get a lead on where she was only to be knocked out and have Myrnin end up possessed also. We were locked in a Crypt for three days – three of which I was unconscious – and when we eventually did escape, we brawled with the vampires holding us captive. We discovered I was pregnant when I collapsed after agreeing to allow the head vampire, Sam – who just so happened to be my distant relative, along with Amelie – to turn me into a vampire, and since then we have added two more people to our group. Thankfully, we got home safely."

Hannah looked extremely taken aback, but she took all of the information in her stride as she replied with a soft, "Huh. Well, you guys hungry?"

"I am starving!" Shane exclaimed as he slammed the front door behind him.

"That was fast," I said after glancing at the clock. He had only left three minutes ago.

"Well, as I said I would do, I ran to the chemist." And as if to prove it he entered the living room panting vigorously with sweat matting his forehead.

"This is really important to you, isn't it?" I asked him.

"Of course it is. It's important to both of us, isn't it?"

I only hesitated slightly before answering, "Of course!"

A big smile spread across his face and his eyes gleamed with joy. I envied him for that, for his joy and his happiness. He hadn't seen my dreams of the future, the good or the bad.

The good one had been completely amazing, but the bad one, it was safe to say, had scared the hell out of me. It hadn't just been a little darker; it had been colder, and more confined. Trying to breathe had been a task that needed every ounce of effort to complete.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" He held out a hand, and after a few seconds I took it. We waved goodbye to all of the smiling faces in the living room – well, Oliver wasn't smiling as much as glaring – and we walked up the stairs.

"Are you ready?" he asked me when we stood outside the bathroom door.

I tried to say yes but I couldn't just lie to him, and I couldn't go inside yet either.

"Can we wait a little longer? Spend a little time together? We haven't really had much time together with everything that's been going on lately."

He seemed to reanalyse my facial features and sensed my unease. "Of course, whatever you want. My room or yours?"

I raised my eyebrows at him and watched as his smile returned to his face. "My room isn't that bad!" he exclaimed.

"No, but my room is so much better." I turned on my heels and sauntered over to my bedroom door, nudging it open with my shoulder when I reached it.

Nothing had changed in here either, and I was starting to regret not making my bed the day that Amelie went missing. I quickly scampered over to it and grabbed the top corners of the covers so that I could pull them up, but before I could I heard a cough behind me.

I turned around slowly with a guilty expression on my face just to see the cheeky smile on Shane's.

"Much better, is it?"

"It was a busy day..."

He walked slowly forward, the mischievous smile refusing to leave his phizog, and repeated, "Tut, tut, tut."

He stopped directly in front of me and his expression suddenly changed from bold to concern. "You are okay with our current... situation?"

"Ye..."

"Don't just say what somebody else in your situation would say, or what you think I want to hear. Say what you would say. What are you thinking?"

I sighed and lowered my gaze to his chest. I didn't want to see his disappointed expression when I told him what I was thinking, because I was going to tell him. Right now.

"In the dreams that I got when I collapsed, there were two options. One was great; it was brilliant, in fact. I was happy, we were happy."

"Are we not happy now?"

"That's not what I'm saying," I said, and I walked over to the space that the cot had been sitting in the dream. "It had started in a black room, and when I turned, the front door of the Glass House was there. I walked inside and through the corridor, just like I normally would have, and then Eve came in after me and slammed the door behind her. Someone had started to cry and Eve had apologised over and over again for not thinking. I, the future me, had walked up the stairs and into this very room. The walls had been painted yellow and her cot had been sitting right here." I pointed to where I was standing.

"Her?"

"We had a girl, and she was called Alyssa, although we called her Lissa for short. She was beautiful." I walked back over to him and continued speaking. "She had your eyes, your big brown eyes and perfectly shaped face. And she had my auburn hair and bright red cheeks. She had fit in my arms perfectly, and you had stood with us as she said her first words." I took his hands in mine. When I looked up, his smile seemed to match my excitement, and I thought I spotted a small tear in the corner of his eye. But the excitement drained out of me as I thought about the other option.

"Then it all changed. I was back to standing in the dark room, and I turned to see the same door. I walked through it to get back to the baby, to get back to you, but it was different." I released his hands and turned to walk over to the window. I stared at the tree that stood outside, the tree that I had stared at so many times in the past, the tree that had always been too far away to climb down. "It was cold, ice cold, and everything had been broken. There was no familiarity to the house, as if a curse had been placed on it. Eve and Michael had run down the stairs when the phone rang as if they had been waiting right at the top for that very moment, that very phone call. The person on the other end of the phone had told them that we were dead, that our child..." A tear threatened to escape, and I let it fall. "She was stillborn."

I hadn't realised that Shane had moved until I felt his arms wrap around me. "It won't be like that, I won't let it be. The child will be born and we will live, we will be the happiest of families. It will be even more perfect than the perfect dream you had, I promise."

I smiled and turned to look at him. "I hope so."

He smiled back at me and bent down to give me the most amazing and heart-warming kiss of all time.

We left the bedroom twenty minutes later and walked down the hall to the bathroom. He handed me the pregnancy test and I accepted it with certainty. I was glad that I hadn't said yes the first time, I hadn't been ready. But I was now.

I smiled at Shane and opened the bathroom door, "I'll be two minutes, and I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't stand so close to the door."

I closed the door behind me and took a deep breath.

It would be even more perfect than the perfect dream I'd had, I repeated to myself.

Eve's POV

It was boring sitting in silence with a bunch of old vampires and the mayor. It wasn't so bad having Michael there, but I couldn't even kiss him without being looked at weirdly. We were married, for goodness sake! But being as young as we were, it still seemed really strange.

It took half an hour for Claire and Shane to finally come back down the stairs. In that amount of time there had been about three conversations around here that had each lasted about five minutes each. Claire and Shane hadn't had much time together for the past while – with Claire passing out and all – so I didn't judge them for being so long. I kept imagining them coming down the stairs with looks of glee on their faces and smiles that could light up an entire room. Instead I got a stricken Claire and a worried Shane. That wasn't good at all.

"What's wrong?" Amelie asked before I even got the chance.

"I'm seven months gone," Claire said, "I'm seven months gone and I'm still as thin as I was seven months ago!"

I didn't know what to do, but I stood up and walked around the sofa. I knew that something was wrong, and I could tell that that's what most of the others in the room had registered themselves. The vampires had also gotten up and Hannah now stood beside Amelie. They were both looking at Claire with concerned expressions – although it was obvious that where Amelie knew what was happening, Hannah didn't.

"The baby was supposed to grow to the size that it should have been after Sonya killed Sam," Amelie said.

"But it hasn't!" Claire yelled, "And there is only one reason that it hasn't! Sam isn't dead! He's still very much alive! I can't get a freaking abortion to save me and Shane, so we are well and truly screwed! In three months time, you will all be visiting our joint funeral. So start shopping, I expect you all to be in your best dresses or shirt and ties." Her knees seemed to buckle under her, but she didn't try to hold on to anything as she fell. She didn't move from the ground, instead she sat still and cried.