Chapter 36 – An Unexpected Event

Amelie's POV

I had noticed the absence of both Oliver and Miranda before, although, I had figured that they were both still fighting. Now that I gave it more thought, there was a maximum of eight fights still taking place, and not one of them consisted of either Oliver or Miranda.

They could have left looking for us – individually, of course – or they each may have gotten in to an extremely heated fight and decided to take their opponent outside.

Whether these options were – in fact – the case or not, none of us had any idea of their possible whereabouts and Michael had informed me that they were most definitely not in the building. So the only way that we were to find them was to start looking.

First and foremost, we all knew that this battle had to stop – there was no reason to be fighting anymore.

I stood at the front of the hall as if I was away to deliver a speech to a hall of Morganville citizens and not a hall of battling opponents.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I made sure that my voice was audible to the people still fighting. Everyone in the room stopped to look over at me with faces of confusion and exhaustion. "I have an important update for you all. To all of Sam Danvers's followers, Sam is now dead. I ask you all to stop fighting, this is now a pointless war that neither side will win unless we end it now and call a truce."

A man about twice my height sauntered over and stood directly in front of me. It seemed as if he wished to intimidate me, however, I was not that easily swayed. His hair looked as if it used to be brown, but it had turned grey with age. As he spoke, his red eyes started to fade.

"Sam's dead?" I nodded my head sympathetically, but he just looked at me with hatred in his eyes. "Did you kill him?"

I didn't know how to reply, although, I decided quickly that the truth was the only thing that would help in this particular situation. "He asked me to end his suffering. The silver stake that he held in his hand had been the stake that he had plunged in to his own heart; nonetheless, I had been the one to withdraw it and allow the silver nitrate to flood his bloodstream. That is the truth, and I hope you realise how sorry I am."

"You're not sorry, you're loving this!" The red returned, stronger this time.

"I am surprised myself at the empathy that I feel after what has happened, but I am certainly not loving this. He was my first love, and no matter how my hatred grew for him over the years, watching him die in front of my eyes and knowing that it had been me who had finished the task is one of the worst things on this earth." I breathed in deeply, closing my eyes tightly to hold in the tears.

"I am sorry," he said with eyes of sincerity, "I am just upset."

"And why would that be?" I asked him, knowing fine well that loyalty would never run this deep in someone like him.

"Because I am his son."

"Excuse me?" I demanded.

"He was my father; he saved me from a family that I did not agree with when I was quite young."

"So he was an adoptive father?" I asked.

He shook his head, "Not at all. I made sure to get blood tests before I believed anything that he said. When I discovered the truth, he made me promise to tell no one, not even his own family, and I kept that promise."

"Did he never ask to turn you in to a vampire?"

"Yes, but I refused. I wanted to live my life like a regular person, even if that meant being a man with ten times more baggage than the usual. He respected my decision and allowed me to live a long and happy life."

"He was locked in a Crypt for most of his life, how are you still here?"

"It was you that locked him in the Crypt, was it not?" I nodded my head in reply, and he smiled sympathetically at me. "He got out only a few days later, him and his followers, and they found a home in Italy."

"He escaped the Crypt a few days later? I don't understand. If he had managed to escape, why hadn't he hunted me down? Why hadn't he gotten his revenge?"

"Because at the time he still loved you, mother."

I instantly looked into his eyes and saw the recognition. I hadn't planned on saying anything about the fact that he was my son, but I guess I couldn't continue like that any longer.

"He always did, he just grew more and more out of his mind as time passed. He did turn me eventually; I had started a family of my own beforehand. I had married a beautiful woman and had two girls and one boy, but my wife had died of a heart attack when the oldest was just eight and the youngest only three. I had been a coward and left them with strangers – not the way you had, when you left me you had done it for me, not yourself. When I had grown older and realised that I had nothing to live for, I had travelled to Italy and found Sam. That was when he had turned me, that is why I am still alive."

I didn't know what to say or do, and neither did anyone else in the room. The realisation that there was an audience watching hit me and I turned away from my son, and then I turned back to face him.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Henry Danvers."

I nodded and turned back again to the audience, "Can you all please go home, and to the followers of Samuel Danvers, please stay in this hall. You," I said to Myrnin, Claire, Shane, Eve, Michael and Morley, "Over here."

As they walked over, I turned to Henry. "Why didn't you die when your first child was born?" I asked him.

"Excuse me?"

"There was a curse that said the first of the Danvers bloodline after the vampire Sam Danvers who was introduced to the vampire world would lose the privilege to have a child, and that if they did, the child would be stillborn and the mother and father would both die along with the baby."

"Maybe there was no curse."

"No curse?" I heard Claire ask from behind me. "Then why was I still thin at seven months pregnant? Why did the baby come early and still survive when he had been in there with no room to grow?"

"Who are you?"

"I am Claire Danvers, your really great-granddaughter – nice to meet you. Anyway, back to the curse. I went through all sorts of stress as I discovered that I would die – along with both the love of my life and my beautiful baby – and it was all for nothing?"

"It wasn't for nothing. If you were still thin when your baby was born then I'm surprised your child is still alive. Well, I assume that the baby you are holding is yours."

"Yes, it is."

"What's his name?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Well, be sure to tell me when you figure it out."

She nodded her head and smiled what looked like a genuinely confused smile, and then she stepped back to stand beside Shane as she realised that Henry couldn't help to answer her questions.

I noticed Morley standing at the back of the group with surprise written across his face. Henry turned to see it, too, and his eyes turned apologetic. "I wanted to tell you, Morley. I really did."

Morley seemed even more stunned, and the group of people standing in front of him moved aside so as to make a path that led to Henry.

He walked forward so he was standing directly in front of Henry.

"You're my nephew?" he asked him.

"Yes, I am."

"But I always thought of you as a best friend figure."

"Keep thinking like that, this fact should change nothing between us. You're my cool Uncle Morley; you just never knew it before."

Morley hesitated before reaching his arms around his nephew's shoulders. When he let go, he was smiling.

"Why did Sam ask you to end his life if he knew that the curse didn't exist?" Shane asked me.

"He was losing his mind more with each passing second, you heard what he said. At that point, there had been no hope."

A tear fell from Morley's eye and, unfortunately for him, everyone saw it before he wiped it away.

"Was it a happy tear, or a sad one?" Eve asked him, and he looked at her with an expression of surprise.

"I think it was both."

Claire's POV

Amelie called a truce between Sam's ex-followers and the Morganville citizens. The truce had said that Sam's followers would be allowed to stay in Morganville, but that there would be no trouble at all from either the usual Morganville residents or the new one's that were to join us.

After it was all figured out, which took about an hour at the most, we decided to start searching for Oliver and Miranda.

As Michael had told us before, neither of them were anywhere in the building, so we began our search outside.

Splitting up in two groups – one group containing Morley, Myrnin and Michael, and the other containing Amelie, Shane, Eve and myself and the baby – my group began its search on Lot Street. The others started looking in Founder's Square.

"Where would Oliver go?" Shane asked, "I'd ask that question about Miranda but we don't know all that much about her."

"Oliver wouldn't go anywhere, that's the problem," Amelie replied, "He would have still been in the Elders' Council Building quarrelling with Sam and his followers until we got there. Instead, he is nowhere to be found."

"Chances are that they would both be somewhere in Founder's Square, so really we're just wasting our time here," Eve pointed out.

"They could be anywhere, but for what reason we are yet to discover. Anyway, this endless chatter is of no help, let's just stay silent."

"What if we see Oliver?" Eve asked.

"Then I give you permission to make noise."

There was silence for almost a minute before Shane called, "I see him!"

Amelie instantly turned to him, but before she got her hopes up she saw his smiling face.

"No, it was just an armadillo, my bad." He raised his arms in surrender as Amelie stared at him with a devilish expression.

Eve and I started laughing when the baby gave a little giggle and turned to pull Amelie's hair. When he grabbed hold, Amelie smiled slightly as well and turned to look at his face. Then the small smile expanded.

Michael's POV

I was beginning to regret offering to join the group of Morley and Myrnin, but we had all decided that Claire wouldn't be in the best position were their group attacked – considering she was carrying a baby with her – so I kindly offered to be with someone I barely knew and someone that I knew was crazy.

We didn't talk all that much – and when I say 'we' I mean 'I'. Morley and Myrnin bickered, spoke and sang the whole way through our little journey to find Oliver and Miranda. It was interestingly annoying.

"Would you mind being quieter?" I asked them.

"Young men can be so incredibly serious, can't they Myrnin?" Morley said in a very sing-song voice.

"Yes they can, Morley, yes they can."

It turned out that the one I barely knew was as crazy as the one I did – and I hadn't even known that was possible. I had once thought that he was quite serious, but it must have been the affect of his brother.

As they continued to sing and bicker and speak, I followed behind heaving a dramatic sigh.

Claire's POV

We had been searching for what felt like days – although, it had only been a couple of hours – and we had found nothing.

Not only that, but the baby started to cry.

"Auw, it's okay. Guys, I think BB's hungry."

"BB?" Shane asked me.

"Well, I thought that since we hadn't figured out a name we could call him BB, as in Baby Boy."

He smiled at me and nodded his head, "That sounds like a plan."

"Yeah, anyway, he's hungry."

"Well, we should probably be getting back to the others at the meeting place," Amelie said, "However, if you wish to take your child home and feed him then you may."

Shane looked at me with an awkward expression and asked a question with just his eyes – impressive!

"Yes, Shane."

He nodded his head and sucked in a deep breath, and then let it out as he shivered dramatically.

I rolled my eyes.

"I'll just go alone, there's no point in..." Shane interrupted me.

"You're not doing that again. Amelie, we will take that offer and take the time to feed BB at home."

Amelie inclined her head and we turned around.

"Guys," Eve whispered loudly, "I don't think I'm ready to be alone with the Ice Queen."

We laughed at the look that Amelie shot her way and began to walk back to the Glass House.

Shane's POV

The unspoken question that I had asked Claire received a spoken answer, and I couldn't help shiver as I thought how it would have been to be a girl.

I mean, it wouldn't have been too bad, well, that would depend on whether I was Monica, Eve or Claire – the three different female species that I knew of so far. Popular, Goth, Geek... That was it in a girl's world. Not that I was calling Claire a geek... I didn't mean... Okay, I didn't say it out loud, and even if I had, Claire probably wouldn't have minded all that much. I loved her just the way she was.

Well, that was me off the hook, even though I was never on it.

"Are you sure you want to breastfeed?" I asked her. "I could easily run to the shop and grab a box of dry milk."

"I'm sure, Shane. Don't worry; you don't need to do it."

Well, that was a relief.

Claire's POV

After BB was fed and settled, Shane and I sat in the living room not knowing what to do.

"We're staying here," Shane told me, "They'll phone us if they find them, or if they need us. Right now we need to stay here with BB."

"You're right," I replied. I lay my head against his shoulder and felt his arm rest on the couch behind my head.

"We've not done this in a while, just me and you," he said.

"That's what Eve and I were saying earlier, just before I gave birth and everything. We're not going to have this for a while, none of us are. We have a baby to take care of now."

"We'll always have this, even if you were half way across the world, we would always have this."

I turned my head to look at him and it just so happened that his lips were in the place that mine ended up. Without warning he pulled me on his lap and gave me the longest and sweetest kiss...

And then there was a cry from upstairs.

We pulled apart and I laughed at the irritated expression on Shane's face. I kissed him quickly on the cheek before hopping off his lap and making my way up the stairs.

"Are you sure he's sleeping?" Shane asked as I kissed BB lightly on his forehead, "I want to be certain this time."

"I'm sure."

"Well then, where were we?" He said as he placed his hands on either side of my face and lost me in a heart-warming kiss.

A ring broke off the kiss and Shane moaned with frustration.

"Do we never get a break around here?"

I ran downstairs and grabbed my phone before it went to voicemail.

"Hello?" I said.

"Claire? It's Eve. We found Oliver."

"Where was he?" I asked.

"He was in the Elders' Council Building."

"Eve, are you okay?"

"Claire, he's dead."