Chapter 38 – The Funeral

Claire's POV

I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and applied my usual amount of mascara and eyeliner. I'd quarrelled with myself previous to that moment about whether or not to wear it, considering the fact that I was going to a dead friend's funeral and quite a number of the people there were most likely to be crying – and that would most certainly make me cry – and as everybody knows, when you cry while wearing mascara and eyeliner, you get panda eyes... It was common sense! Although, I was surprised that I didn't look like that anyway considering the long nights I'd had with looking after baby Oliver. I thought logically and decided that to both look nice and be able to cry without looking like a terrible wrestler, I needed to use waterproof mascara – how original!

That's how it was now, making stupid jokes to ourselves to lighten the mood as much as we could. It had been eight days since we found Oliver in the Elders' Council Building with Miranda's stake in his heart, and I was actually glad to have the added job of looking after the baby. If I hadn't had baby Oliver to keep me on my feet, I didn't know what I would have been like over the past few torturous days.

I didn't want to take Oliver with us to the funeral, but I knew that there was nobody I trusted who wouldn't be going to the funeral that could look after him at home – and I had to pay my respects. Looking at him as he slept in his carrier, I hoped that he would be okay until it was all over.

I heard a knock at the bathroom door and jumped, which resulted in dropping my mascara in the sink. Sighing heavily, I rested my hands against the edge of the basin and looked at myself in the mirror – I was pale, like ghost pale, and my pink pyjamas didn't help in the slightest.

"Come in," I mumbled as I tried to get myself together and picked up the fallen mascara brush.

When Eve came through the door, she instantly gasped and reclosed the door behind her before running over to me.

"Claire, you know how I'm Goth?" she spoke really fast, but I was used to that by now.

"Yeah..." Of course I knew; what kind of stupid question was that? I did live with her!

"Well, you look as white as I do with my makeup on. Honestly, you're making me feel tanned!" She still had on her morning face – which made her look so much younger than when she covered her face in gothic makeup – but having her tell me that I looked Goth was quite terrifying.

"Are you sure? Maybe it's just the light."

"No, CB, I'm sure."

I took another deep breath and decided to ignore her. With the mascara brush in my hand, I finished off with the makeup side of things and took the baby carrier in my hand. I started walking to the bathroom door so that I could go and get changed in my room.

"Clean up the sink, would you?" I asked Eve, "Slight mascara spillage."

That was an understatement.

"This one, or this one?" I asked.

"Um, that one, it's shorter."

"Come on, Shane, take this seriously! This one, or this one?"

"I cannot believe that you're asking him for fashion advice when I'm just a walk down the hall!" Eve yelled as she sauntered into the room all dressed and with all makeup applied – today's colour theme was a greyish blue, probably a way to signify grief along with the black that signified death. "You," she barked at Shane, "Should be on your way. We have things to do," she said in a sing-song voice.

"I'm not ready!" he protested.

"And considering that your outfit is in your room, you won't be ready for a long while if you keep hanging around here!"

He rolled his eyes and looked over to me with a questioning face.

"Go," I said as I walked over to him, "I'll be ready when you knock on the door." I kissed him on the cheek but he took hold of my elbows and moved his lips to mine. I laughed as I heard Eve's dramatic sigh behind us – this was really bugging her – and by the way that Shane's mouth twitched upward as he continued with the same dizzying kiss, he'd heard it too, and he found it extremely funny.

To be honest, I did too.

"Okay, okay, okay. Too strong showings of affection, I'm standing right here."

"Yes, in Claire's bedroom. It's not like we're standing on the street and putting on a show for the neighbours."

I grinned at Shane for a second before preparing myself to look completely serious as I turned back to Eve.

"You finished?" she asked us.

"He was just leaving," I replied.

Before he left, Shane gave a small bow and took Eve's hand and gently placed a kiss in the centre. Then he turned to me and took my hand just as he had Eve's and placed another gentle kiss on my hand, dragging it out slightly longer than he had with Eve.

"Goodbye... goodbye... goodbye," he recited the finishing lyrics from the song "Goodbye" from The Sound of Music. His voice didn't reach the high note on the last goodbye and I tried not to laugh.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked Eve after Shane left.

"What's wrong with me? What is wrong with me is the two outfits you are choosing from, they look like woolly jumpers!"

"They aren't that bad!" I argued back.

"No, but these," she said, taking two dresses from behind her back, "are much better."

"How long have you been holding them?" I asked, staring at the amazing dresses she held. One was a soft silk material, but it was the other one that I was more drawn to. It was long enough to stretch to my knees, and had a beautiful lace the entire way through it, although it wasn't see through. There was also a sparkle weaving through the lacy pattern.

"Well, it depends whether you mean 'how long have I been holding on to them' or 'how long have I been holding them'."

Okay, I was officially confused.

"What?" I asked as my face distorted and showed a bamboozled expression.

"Huh," she sighed, "It doesn't matter. Let's just get you looking amazing for this funeral."

And as soon as she said that last word, it turned slightly awkward.

She repeated again, "Well, let's just get you looking amazing."

Shane's POV

I looked in the cupboard and realised that I had nothing to wear for the funeral. I mean, I had looked at stuff on the internet, stuff in shops, stuff in general, but I hadn't actually had time to buy anything.

I poked my head through the door and took a quick glance toward the side of the corridor that I knew Claire and Eve were. When I saw that it was clear, I jogged silently out of the room and turned the way that I was headed... And bumped straight in to Michael, who was standing outside of his door with a questioning expression on his face.

"What?" I demanded quietly, but before he could reply in a very normal, very audible voice, I shook my head and held my index finger up to my lips. Then I dragged him along the corridor to his bedroom.

Shutting the door, I said, "That's a really nice shirt and tie that you're wearing."

"Um, thanks. What's going on?" he asked.

"Well, I was wondering if there was any chance that you had one spare."

"And why would you need to know that?" His eyebrows were now raised.

"I, sort of, forgot to buy an outfit for the funeral."

"How could you forget?" he demanded.

"Have you got one or not?"

He sighed and shook his head before turning toward his cupboard.

"This one was always too big for me, so it might fit you," he said, handing me a coat hanger.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do you want the suit or not?"

I rolled my eyes and took the outfit out of his hand.

"Thanks," I said before turning and leaving the room.

Claire's POV

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Wait a minute!" Eve shouted to the door and put the last kirby grip in my hair. "Okay, you're ready."

"Finally," I breathed, and the strands of hair that Eve had left to dangle at either side of my face flew up as I let out my breath.

Eve laughed and shook her head at me as she walked over to the bedroom door.

When Shane looked at me, his face took on an expression of awe.

"Wow."

"No time for that now, let's go!" Eve called, "Wait, is that Michael's suit?" She shook her head and seemed to push the problem away with her hand. Taking my arm, she dragged us down the stairs and to the front door.

Michael sat in the front of Eve's new giant car and Shane and I sat in the back.

"You look beautiful," Shane whispered in my ear after the car's engine had started.

"You don't look too shabby yourself," I whispered back.

I snuggled into him as he rested his arm on my right shoulder.

"You ready?" he asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I answered.

We sat like that in silence for the entire ride to the church, and when it finally came into view, I started to regret ever leaving the house.

Amelie's POV

My surroundings reminded me of Sam's funeral – Sam Glass's, of course – and I realised how identical these situations were. Love wasn't an emotion that I was usually allowed for a long length of time, it always ended in heartbreak and death. At least this time I knew that I had been with him for a while before... everything happened.

"Amelie?" I heard Claire say from behind me. I hadn't even realised that they were here.

I turned on my heels and wrapped her in my arms. The tears that I had expected to fall didn't, I managed to hold them back.

"Can everyone please be seated?" I heard Father Joe's voice say after a while, and when I looked up I discovered a room full of people ranging from human children to vampire Elders. I smiled at them all.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

Claire's POV

There was a surprising amount of people that came to the funeral, and a surprising number of people who spoke about their involvements with Oliver before he died – and they even left out the bad occurrences that had clearly happened between them. It wasn't an open casket, so not many people stood by the coffin, but there were certainly a large number of people there.

To sum it up, I could imagine that if Oliver were here, he would be looking smug (more smug than usual, and that said something).

At the end of the funeral, after everyone had left, it was just us – Amelie, Eve, Shane, Michael and Myrnin – sitting at the front of the church hall staring at the picture of Oliver that was framed and leaning beside the casket.

I hadn't noticed before, but Henry had snuck in just before the event had started. When I saw him, he reminded me of something.

I looked at the baby that slept in the carrier in front of me and said to everyone, "We named the baby."

They all looked at me but Amelie was the first to say, "Well?"

I turned my head to face her and smiled, "Oliver, baby Oliver."

She smiled back and we all laughed.

How smug would he have been now?

Two Weeks Later – Claire's POV

I woke up to the sound of my door slamming closed. I moaned and turned on my side to face the person that walked in.

Shane.

"Why are you up?" I asked.

"Because it's twelve o'clock, and you aren't ready yet."

"Ready for what?"

"I know we've been through a lot in the past few weeks, but please tell me that you didn't forget about our honeymoon."

"Actually, I had."