Chapter 37 – Baby Names

Claire's POV

We had no choice but to wake BB before we left for Founder's Square. I whimpered at the level of noise he produced as he cried and screamed for bed, but when he realised that that wasn't an option at that particular moment in time, he seemed to calm down.

We had to jog all the way to Founder's Square – fast enough that we would get there on time and slow enough that the baby was secure in my arms.

It was fifteen minutes after Eve's phone call by the time we got there, and standing outside the Elders' Council Building was a crowd full of people – both Morganville citizens and Sam's followers. They parted as we reached them and made a path that led us straight to the door.

Inside we found Amelie, Eve, Morley, Myrnin, Michael... and Oliver. He lay on the floor with a stake in his heart.

"Oh," I breathed at the same time as Shane gulped audibly, "Shane, can you hold BB?"

He nodded and took the baby out of my arms. I walked over to where Amelie kneeled beside Oliver. She was crying.

"Are you okay?" I asked, but before she could answer I added, "That was a stupid question, of course you're not."

She smiled at me, but the pain in her eyes was purely obvious.

"I thought you said you hadn't seen him," I said to Michael.

"He hadn't been fighting, and I had assumed that if I were to see Oliver, he would be fighting." He looked at Oliver's dead body. "I guess I was wrong."

"What do we do now?" I asked after an awkward silence.

"We do exactly what I did when I first founded this town," Amelie said, "We take it day by day, and we help each other. There is going to be a larger population with Sam's followers now joining our community, we are going to have to figure out some new ways to work with things. Until everything is settled, there isn't much to do."

"Are we going to give Oliver a funeral?" I asked.

"Of course we are. He needs to know that we cared for him – all in different ways, of course," she added, glancing toward Shane and then to Eve.

I looked away from Oliver. "Do you know who killed him?" I asked.

"He probably just got into a fight with the wrong person."

"If by the wrong person you mean me," a familiar feminine voice chirped from behind us, "Then you are very much correct."

"Miranda!" we all exclaimed – all except Morley, who hadn't seemed to put all the pieces together yet.

"Yes. When I found my lovely Sam lying on the floor of a random house, I came back here for revenge. Oliver was the only person available."

"So you killed him?" Eve demanded.

"Well, obviously."

"I have so many things swirling around in my head right now," Eve began, "but I won't say any because not one of them are appropriate things to say in front of a baby!"

"Well, that's not very nice!" Miranda said in a voice that dripped of sarcasm and amusement.

"Says the one who just killed someone out of cold blood," Michael stated.

In a flash, Amelie was behind Miranda and holding her in a terrifying grip.

"Come on, Amelie, kill me!" Miranda shouted, "You know you want to."

"I shall not kill you, you fool! That isn't punishment enough for killing the joint leader of this town. Instead, you will face years of torment and misery, waiting for that fateful day when there is nothing left – just darkness."

Miranda's eyes gleamed with worry but she quickly recovered and laughed as if she had no care in the world. "Oh, dear Amelie, you don't compare even slightly to the stories that Sam always told me. I preferred that Amelie, she was must less fragile when it came to the loss of her lovers."

Shane laughed and Myrnin said what we were all thinking, "In no way is Amelie fragile or lenient or any of those things that you seem to think."

"That's what she does. She makes you trust her so that you don't see all of the little things that she does to make your life misery. Isn't that right, Amelie?"

"That is certainly not, Miranda, and we both know that the words that you speak are never completely true." Amelie pulled Miranda's head back further, making her scream in pain, and looked over to us. "Find people from outside that are willing to take this one to Morganville's prison, make sure at least one of them knows where it is."

I stayed with Shane and the baby as the others left to do what Amelie had asked of them.

"Are you okay?" Shane asked me.

"I..." I broke down and tears began to spill from my eyes.

"It's okay, Claire," Shane told me.

"But it's not! We've gone through so much stuff in this town but we haven't ever lost anyone. Oliver's gone, Shane, and not just away on Holiday in Las Vegas. He's dead."

Shane didn't have a response for that, and I wouldn't have had one either had I been in his position. I'd thought I was fine after what had happened – well, as fine as I could be – but it turns out that I was completely wrong.

BB was sleeping, and I decided that it was time for me to do the same. After all, I had used up a lot of energy giving birth and all.

"I'm going to go home, put BB to bed and take forty winks."

"Do you want me to come with you?" he asked kindly, although, it sounded as though he knew what his answer was going to be.

Instead of answering the way I had the past few days, I looked at him and nodded.

Before we left, we made sure to get Amelie's permission, but she told us that we didn't need any permission. Although, considering the fact that we lived in Morganville, we would always need permission.

Amelie's POV

After Claire and Shane left with their little boy, the others returned with four vampires. Two I knew – one was a Morganville resident called Charlie and another was my son – but the other two were clearly two of Sam's followers that I hadn't met before.

"I assume that you have all been informed of what you must do." They nodded in response. "Very well, please continue."

I stood aside to allow them past, but Henry stayed beside me for a moment longer. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said.

"I am, too."

When Miranda was gone and it was just me and the usual familiar faces left – excluding Claire and Shane – I sat on the floor beside Oliver and watched his pale face as he lay dead with a stake in his heart.

Claire's POV

BB fell asleep no problem at all, and Shane and I cuddled up in Shane's bed with a laptop.

"Was it this one?" he asked me.

"No, it was wooden, not steel. And it was white, not grey."

"I didn't witness this dream, and you're not exactly giving me much information to go on here."

"You're right. You know what, just get that one."

"But you said that that wasn't the one in the dream," he said.

"I know, but I'm starting to realise that the specific details of the dream are trivial, it's the point of the dream that's important."

"And what was the point?"

"The point was that we were happy, so whatever will make us happy is what will make our dream real."

He smiled and kissed me lightly on the lips, "Then this one it is." After clicking the left button on the track pad, a notice came up to notify us that the purchase was complete. Shutting the laptop and pushing it aside, Shane rolled over so that he was looking down at me.

"Hello, my lovely lady."

I rolled over again and ended up above Shane.

"Hello, my handsome man."

He smiled at me and took my hair out of the ponytail that it was in. It fell down past my shoulders and down past Shane's ears, the ends tickling his face.

"Wow, my hair is long!"

"Well, we haven't exactly had time to take a trip to the hairdresser," he remarked.

I smirked.

He knocked away my arms that I had placed at either side of him and I fell right on top of him.

"That's better," he said before rolling over once again and ending up back above me.

"Shane?"

"Yes."

"What do you think about the name Oliver?"

He looked in to my eyes and let go of a silent laugh. "I think that it's a great name."

"Oliver Danvers Collins," I said.

"We should call him Oliver Collins Danvers so that the initials make O.C.D!" he joked.

"Let's stick with Danvers Collins, I don't hate my child."

"Give it a few weeks," he teased, and he completed the joke with a wink.