A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

Someone suggested that Erin have twins, would anyone else like to see that?

If so what would you like the genders to be (two girls, two boys or one of each)?

Chapter 16: Harmless

"Do I really have to go through this?" Erin hissed at her husband, as she was being poked and prodded on the couch. She let out a sharp gasp as Renfield poked her that fraction too hard.

"Yes." Two voices spoke at once before turning back to their blood. Vlad held Erin's goblet in his hand, waiting for her to finish her non-too private examination before giving it to her.

Erin muttered a string of curses, she never usually cursed but the situation called for it. She fixed her strongest death glare on Vlad who seemed to shrug it off and smile at her in a way that was annoyingly distracting.

"Vlad you need to get out of here." Robin told his friend, "They've all been invited into the manor once, they can come in again and again."

Vlad shook his heads, giving his friend a kind smile, "I'm not running away Robin. This is my home, if I leave it gives Olga a victory knowing she drove us from our home."

Ingrid nodded slowly, "He's right." She muttered as she entered the room, handing Vlad a list of names. She'd heard Erin's curses down the corridor, not to mention the ones she'd been broadcasting loudly telepathically.

"If I have to go through this after every tiny fight…"

"*Tiny* fight?" Vlad emphasised the word 'tiny' with a lot of incredulity. "Erin it was us versus my cousin and fifteen of her followers. It wasn't tiny, we have a 'tiny' fight when we spar, that definitely wasn't 'tiny'."

"Hardly an army," She mumbled. Erin finally had enough of Renfield and stood sharply so he couldn't touch her again, judging from the way he didn't protest she assumed everything was fine.

Ingrid had picked up on another word that Vlad had seemed to miss, "*Every*?" Vlad suddenly realised what Ingrid meant, "There's no way Vlad's going to let you fight again."

Erin shook her head, she wasn't going to accept that. "I'm healthy and nothing happened to the baby…"

"This time." Vlad cut in sharply. "You might be officially my equal now but you need to think of the baby. I don't want you in another fight Erin," Erin opened her mouth to protest, "Its not just you now Erin, you have to think about the baby now."

"Fine. Anything else you want me to do? Sew? Take up knitting?"

"Well…" His tone turned teasing but Erin wasn't amused.

Erin let out a growl, launching a fireball that knocked Vlad's goblet out of his hand and directly to the floor using the perfect level of power. The angle at which the cup tipped from the attack splashed the remaining soy blood all over his shirt.

Ingrid and Robin bit their lips to stop from laughing. Vlad looked outraged for a moment, before wiping his finger down his shirt and grabbing the residue and flicking it towards Erin with a faint smile. Erin raised her arms to stop her face being covered in soy blood.

The Count gasped and Steph decided to step in at her daughter's behaviour. She roughly grabbed her wrist and tried to yank her from the room to discipline her. Erin easily twisted her arm from her mother.

"We might not like you being married to a vampire but you will act as a slayer wife should. Obeying his every move, you don't do anything to make him angry. You are carrying his child, what he wants, you do."

Steph went to grab Erin again but she felt her own wrist in a vice like grip. She turned to see Vlad, staring at her coldly. Erin knew that look anywhere.

"Don't think you know what I want, slayer." His voice was monotone as he spoke and more formal than anyone but Erin and Ingrid were used to. His guard had slipped slightly exposing the evil he kept tightly locked inside him. "Erin's hormones are changing, she will lose her temper quickly. I'm not going to stop her, if she needs something to scream at then let her. I'm only telling her what to do in the interests of keeping our child safe. I'm not being a demanding husband because I want to be. This is my home; slayer rules don't apply to me or my family. Erin isn't a slayer, she's never been one. I suggest you remember that."

Vlad let go of Steph's wrist, grabbing Erin protectively he led her from the room and along the corridors before anyone else could confront them.

YEKNODELTTILYEKNODELTTIL

He pushed Erin in first, making sure she couldn't escape from him. Erin had a flash of the aftermath of a certain feast years ago. Her lips tingled at the memory.

"You didn't need to throw that fireball." He told her firmly in the privacy of their room; as soon as the door closed he yanked his shirt over his head not bothering to undo the buttons leaving him in his t-shirt. He looked down and saw that the shirt was coated in soy blood as well; he gave a sigh and pulled it off as well.

It didn't seem that his chest had escaped the soy blood either. He tried to wipe it off only succeeding in spreading it further.

Erin grasped his hands and gently. "It got the message across." She struggled reaching for a piece of tissue and began wiping off the blood that coated his chest. She was gentle as she did it. Vlad grasped her wrists gently, guiding her hands upwards.

"Erin you're pregnant, if you slay someone by accident or harm a slayer it'll be the excuse they're looking for to get rid of you. The Council will jump at the chance. You know the price for vampicide?" He reminded her softly.

"Yeah." It was one of the laws Vlad had kept that carried the death penalty, the other was treason.

Erin balled up the last tissue and threw it down, Vlad was officially clean again. She reached behind him and picked up the shirt from where he'd dropped it.

Erin traced the stain on his shirt with her fingers, feeling the soy blood coat her fingers. She suppressed a smile, he did look like the typical image of a bloodthirsty vampire completely splattered in blood. "Sorry I ruined your shirt."

"No you're not." He shook his head, Erin gave him an innocent look, "You hate this shirt." Erin couldn't deny it, she really hated the yellow and grey chequered shirt. It wasn't Vlad but he'd always seemed to like it. "Next time don't throw a fireball… do something else instead that won't end up with someone getting slain."

"Like twisting Zoltan's head around?"

Vlad chewed his tongue, she had never let him forget that. "That was once and I had a reason for that."

"Just like I have one now."

His eyes narrowed, hers really was a weak argument. "Being evil and being pregnant isn't the same thing." Erin shrugged, it was worth a try.

Vlad sighed and turned around, walking over to their drawers. He saw her look down and knew she was regretting her actions. He strode back over to her and pulled her into his arms. Erin buried herself deeper into them, "I'm just scared Vlad, I don't want to leave you on your own to deal with this and the baby…"

"Is our future Erin. We're doing this for him or her, they need a world they can be safe in." He felt Erin nod and he pulled back dropping a soft kiss to her lips.

"Why do you think she took it?" Erin asked him softly, kissing his bare back lightly as he rummaged for a clean t-shirt. She felt his muscles ripple under that small action so she did it again.

"I don't know, it's useless to her."

"What does the bone do?"

Vlad shrugged, "Nothing." That's what puzzled him he honestly didn't see the use of the bone for Olga. It represented the madness of vampires wanting to take over and turn their world to nothing more than ash. It was a trophy or something or a sacred relic to those fanatics, that's why he'd protected it. Vlad realised something then and there, "There might be someone who knows something. Who was the person who took the bone in the first place?"

Bertrand.

YEKNODELTTILYEKNODELTTIL

Vlad was still slipping his shirt on when he appeared in front of his sister making her jump. Ingrid jumped again less than a second later as Erin appeared directly in front of her. Ingrid leaned against the table, clutching it fiercely as her brother and his wife were a little to close forcing her to arch away and the table was the only thing stopping her from falling backwards.

"Does Bertrand know?" Vlad asked Ingrid, he wanted a direct answer.

Ingrid was now confused. "Know what?"

"Why Olga took the bone?"

"Maybe she wants to resurrect Sethius." Ingrid suggested with a shrug, Vlad had resurrected someone before from a bone.

Vlad shook his head, "The bone's useless, it's not enough to resurrect Sethius. If she managed it there would be no way he'd share his power, not after what I did." Sethius wouldn't want to offer power considering Vlad had thrown it back in his face.

Ingrid realised this was probably what Bertrand had been desperate to tell her. "Bertrand's been trying to tell me something for days, he can't force himself to Vlad. Olga swore him to secrecy."

Vlad nodded slowly, he knew Bertrand had to obey that command regardless. He turned towards his only hope. Vlad turned to Erin's parents, "Can the machine be fixed?"

Tom and Steph looked at each other, "I don't know…"

Vlad suppressed a growl, this wasn't the time to beat about the bush. All of their lives were at stake now; he decided to try for another tactic. Something that might appeal to him.

"You keep talking about getting Erin back, what about Ryan?" He questioned. "They're both vampires nothing can change that now. The real Ryan wants his loyalty undone." Vlad paused, they really hadn't considered their son, Erin had been a way of marrying into influence and power so she'd always been their main target. "You fix it, if it works on Bertrand I'll give you Ryan to cure."

Tom shared a look with his wife, "We want Ryan first."

Vlad let out a growl, "It doesn't matter if we all get killed. I need to know why Olga took the bone. I can't do that if we cure Ryan first. Ryan knows nothing about it, Bertrand does. Bertrand goes first."

Tom wasn't going to accept that, he slammed his hand down on the table. "Ryan…"

"If you cure Ryan first then you'd refuse to cure Bertrand or if the machine breaks then it'll take too long to fix it. I know you don't care about me or my family but Erin is your daughter and you have a grandchild on the way. Stop thinking about the differences between us and look at what we have in common."

Steph nodded slowly, Tom following her. It would be good to have at least one child back. It was time they put everything behind them once and for all and looked to the future rather than to the past.

YEKNODELTTILYEKNODELTTIL

The machine was quickly fixed, the Nobles had a standby laptop after Vlad had successfully destroyed the last one. The screen didn't even flicker on when it was turned on, he'd completely blown the circuitry in his desperation to stop them testing it on Erin.

"How does it work?" Erin asked quietly, rubbing her still flat stomach gently – an action that annoyed her father to no end.

"It introduces argentalium in a gas form into the vampire body."

Erin stepped back, "It'll kill the vampire."

Tom shook his head, "It wouldn't, it's not strong enough to do that. The gas is forced through the veins in their body, because their… your hearts have stopped beating, to the brain. When its there it neutralises the influence that the bite has on the brain, dissolving the controlling substances there that were introduced through the bite."

"So you're restoring their brain back to how it was before they were bitten?" She wanted to understand.

"Yes."

Erin nodded, she was right. "It would never have worked on me." She told them with a large smile, I don't have those substances in me anymore because the signals my brain sends out neutralises them. The signals that mean I love Vlad, they're the ones that neutralised them."

Tom scoffed, she was forgetting one thing, "Bertrand loves Ingrid…"

"But Ingrid didn't bite him, his brain can reject half of the chemicals but not all of them. What makes it stronger for him is that his brain's always trying to reject the bite because he doesn't love Olga and didn't want it. I accepted Vlad had to bite me, my brain knew what was going to happen so I never had to fight it, I was already in love with him so the signals were already there to neutralise it."

"Its disturbing to hear you talk like that." Tom told her bluntly, he never thought he'd hear his daughter talking about humans as 'breathers' or 'bites' so bluntly.

Erin shrugged, it was who she was. Who she'd always been deep down. From the moment she'd met Vlad she'd taken to using the terms, at first it had been a cover then it had come naturally to her.

Vlad pushed the door open slowly to reveal Bertrand clutching Ingrid's hand tightly. He looked at the chair and gulped.

"You don't have to do this." Ingrid told him quietly, she wanted him to but doubt niggled at her mind.

Bertrand wasn't going to let the opportunity pass, he was just afraid it wouldn't work. "I want to do this Ingrid. I want to be myself."

Erin took her cue and moved over towards Vlad, he pulled her back towards the wall to give the couple in front privacy – as limited as it was.

Ingrid gently sat him in the chair, completely the opposite to how she'd handled Erin. Slowly she wrapped the cuffs around his wrists and around his neck, double-checking they were secure as she went.

"I love you." He whispered to her. Ingrid smiled and kissed him lightly.

"Love you too." She whispered. She lifted her ring up. "Remember even if I didn't say it at the time, yes." She kissed him chastely again as he smiled widely.

She walked backwards from him, not wanting to take her eyes off him.

Tom interrupted them all. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah."

Then the machine began.

The Nobles had been wrong – it wasn't harmless.

YEKNODELTTILYEKNODELTTIL

Bertrand immediately began to fit in the chair. His whole body shook violently, arching from the chair as he tried to get away. Vlad knew he wouldn't have been able to watch Erin go through this – so much for being harmless.

His face turned black as the argentalium was sent through his still veins and arteries.

He screamed, Ingrid had never seen him scream in pain before. She couldn't watch this she turned away. The Count gently wrapped an arm around his usually strong daughter's shoulders, an uncharacteristic gesture of affection that didn't go unnoticed. Ingrid clutched at him.

Tears began to fly down Ingrid's cheeks, "He can't handle much more."

"Stop it now!" Vlad roared at Erin's parents.

Tom looked at Vlad, no emotion on his face. "Its nearly over."

This wasn't worth Bertrand's life; Vlad knew he'd been right in stopping Erin from being the first guinea pig. It would have cost them the baby.

Vlad stepped close, a fireball forming in his hand he threw it at the device, holding it just before it hit it warning the Nobles that he was serious about carrying out his threat. "Stop it or I will."

"Another thirty seconds."

Erin looked at Bertrand, "He doesn't have thirty seconds."

"Its an automatic process, we can't stop it only the computer can."

Vlad's eyes blacked and he prepared to relinquish the hold he had over the fireball when the machine shut down completely.

The cuffs released automatically, and he stood on shaky legs – legs that instantly gave way under him.

Ingrid flew to Bertrand's side as he collapsed onto the floor.

"Vlad…" He began, swallowing to try and wet his throbbing, dry throat.

"Don't talk." Vlad's voice was soft, Bertrand needed to get his strength back before telling him. Bertrand shook his head, Vlad needed to know. He wasn't bound anymore, he could feel that deep inside.

"She doesn't want to resurrect him." Bertrand managed to gasp out, he looked physically sick. Vlad had never seen him so weak. Erin handed Bertrand a cup of blood, which he took from her gratefully, drinking it quickly and deeply

"Then why…"

"She wants it for something much worse, something that will make her unstoppable…"

TBC

A/N: What do you think?

Would anyone else like to see Erin have twins?

Thanks for reading.