A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

I did try to post this earlier but I had a slight problem, a problem I'd like your help to decide what to do. I've explained in more detail in the next chapter.

Chapter 17: Capable

Vlad reached down and supported Bertrand while Ingrid repositioned herself to lay Bertrand's head across her lap.

Vlad couldn't let the subject drop, "What does she want to do with the bone?"

"Vlad he's weak." Ingrid told her brother, Bertrand needed to rest.

"He needs to know." Bertrand told her, "Olga's trying… to… she wants…" He was still struggling to answer them. He was trying to force the words out but nothing but choking noises were made.

Vlad turned towards his in laws, anger on his face. He couldn't believe this, "I thought it was supposed to work." Bertrand had been put through enough pain thanks to that… contraption. Vlad didn't want him to go through it again.

Steph couldn't understand it, it should have taken affect almost immediately. He'd regained some of his free will, she couldn't' understand it. "It might take a while to work."

"You never mentioned that!" Erin shouted at them,

Tom shrugged, he didn't really care, "It was designed for your genetic makeup – a half fang not a true vampire."

"So it would have killed the baby." Vlad summed up, their child was a mixture of a half fang and a full vampire, not to mention the most powerful vampire that ever existed, the first of its kind.

Ingrid's face dropped as she froze at Vlad's words but it wasn't directed at her, Vlad would have slain her there and then if she'd been the reason behind them losing their unborn child.

Vlad stood tall, full of anger. It reminded Erin of when he found her slayer's kit. "I would never have let Erin sit in that,"

Erin honestly believed her parents didn't know about it, they wouldn't put her through that pain. They'd rather put her through emotional pain. "Vlad they didn't know…"

"They didn't consider it."

Bertrand looked at Ingrid, watching the conversation. It took the remainder of his strength, his eyes rolled back in his head. "Vlad!" Ingrid cried in terror and fear. She couldn't tell whether Bertrand had passed out or whether he was about to turn to dust.

Vlad placed a hand on Bertrand's forehead, he didn't feel any rise in temperature from Bertrand, he lifted his left eyelid gently. He saw a flicker of movement in Bertrand's eyes. "He's alive." Ingrid looked down with a sigh of relief. Vlad gestured towards Renfield who scurried over to them. "Take Bertrand to his room."

"Yes Master Vlad."

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Ingrid seemed to snap to attention the moment the door was closed behind Renfield as he struggled to carry Bertrand's weight.

She refused to let herself ponder over her almost fiancé, she shot upwards standing tall. She didn't bother to dust herself off she just looked at Vlad her head held high.

Vlad and Erin shared a very confused look, they couldn't understand why Ingrid was still here.

"You have eighty clear clans that will follow you." Ingrid muttered, showing Vlad the scroll. "Twenty you can't trust, they want something out of it.

Vlad looked at Ingrid, she was only running him through the information she'd collected to take her mind off Bertrand. "Ingrid, go to Bertrand."

"He's fine."

"He might be but you're not." Vlad's voice turned soft, the softness he usually only reserved for Erin, "Go to him Ingrid, don't leave him alone when he wakes up."

Ingrid was reluctant to agree but she'd want Bertrand to be the first thing she saw when she woke so she nodded to Vlad before vanishing from the room.

"Do you think it'll work?" Erin asked him softly.

Vlad shrugged, he couldn't tell for sure. Steph might be right, it might take a while for all the substances to be neutralised. "I don't know."

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The first thing Bertrand was aware of was gentle fingers being run slowly through his hair. He leaned towards the contact, as his eyes fluttered open slowly.

The room was bathed in a warm glow, it made him panic at first and he shot upright. He scrambled to get out of the sunlight as much as possible.

He felt arms clamp around his shoulders, holding him back. He struggled more and more. He lashed out with his arm, knocking his assailant back a few feet. It wasn't hard enough to hurt them but hard enough to knock them away from him.

"Bertrand!" His female assailant cried, partly as a warning partly in exasperation. She landed near a table and thankfully not through it. It was an antique and while Vlad didn't care that much for them he'd taken it as part of his hobby and it had been a nightmare to restore and polish. He'd kill her if she broke it.

He knew that voice anywhere and snapped out of the daze he was in. He rushed around to them feeling his legs turning to jelly. "I'm sorry…" He began, helping them upright but only succeeding in falling to the ground.

"You okay?" Ingrid asked him, trying to brace his fall but failing miserably. He landed beside her, giving out an 'oomph' as he landed on his knee. He grimaced as it was an old injury sustained in the last vampire war. Bertrand nodded, gritting his teeth as he waited for the pain to pass, it was the leg he always defended in training. "Are you still…"

"I don't feel it." He muttered quietly, "There's a part of me at the back of my mind that tells me I am but I think I can control it – for now." He wasn't too convinced in that yet, it was strange his mind felt stronger than it had in a week but he was scared he'd loose it again, as if it was luring him into a false sense of security.

Ingrid smiled and leaned her head against his chest. "I'm glad you're back." She inhaled his scent, wrapping her arms around him loosely. Bertrand rested his arms around her, holding her to him.

"I don't know for how long." He whispered, feeling less confident.

"You can beat it Bertrand."

"We're completely the opposite to Erin and Vlad." Ingrid muttered quietly under her breath. "They never tried to slay each other." Not that they knew anyway.

"I only tried to get rid of you because I wasn't going to be weak. You know how love affects vampires more than anyone, I wasn't going to have that happen to me." It had disgusted him that he could feel that way, vampires didn't love he'd been taught that since he was born so he'd closed himself off when he'd lost his parents and had been forced to care for his brothers and sisters.

"You failed, every single time."

"Maybe I never wanted to succeed." Deep down he'd grown to believe that, he'd taken his time when he had perfect chance to stake her when the Van Helsings had arrived. If he wanted to slay her she would have been dust before Vlad ever found out. That was what told him his feelings had changed for her.

Ingrid watched as he began to cough, his throat dry. She carefully extracted herself from his arms walking over to his cabinet. She opened the door and tapped on the lid, immediately a blood bag dropped into her hands. Bertrand was good at hiding things but she knew him inside and out, she'd begun to think like him.

Bertrand didn't think she'd be able to find that.

She tore the seal on the bag and handed it to him, not bothering with a goblet. A goblet would waste more time, he needed the blood that instant. He took it from her, drinking greedily feeling it satiate his thirst, Olga hadn't given him anywhere near enough blood while she'd been 'looking after' him.

Splotches of blood appeared on his chin and clothes from where Ingrid had ripped the blood bag a fraction too far.

Ingrid's eyes watered, usually he'd care about that but he was just so thirsty. He handed her the empty back and leaned his head back, feeling it rest against the table next to the coffin. He closed his eyes, feeling more relaxed than he had for days.

Ingrid carefully reached up and stroked his hair from his eyes. "I can tell him you're not ready."

"He needs to know this Ingrid, you all do." His voice was serious as he tried to push himself up from the floor, failing completely as he still felt weak.

Ingrid moved away from him, standing up fully and extending her hand out towards him.

Bertrand grasped it gratefully; this was once the vampire who'd refused any help from anyone. He smiled kissing her lightly.

"Lets go see my baby brother then."

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Vlad leaned against the wall his eyes closed as he waited for Bertrand to tell him all he knew about Olga. It wasn't Bertrand's fault that Olga had obtained the information from him about the bone. Vlad knew it could have happened to anyone. He knew Bertrand wouldn't forgive himself for what he'd done.

Vlad would make sure it never left this room that Bertrand had been the one who did this, their kind were very prejudiced about betrayal – intentional or not. "Why does she want the bone?" Vlad tried again, not expecting an answer but was pleasantly surprised when he received a complete one in return unlike the half answers before.

Bertrand looked at Vlad, feeling capable to tell him what he needed to know for the first time since he was bitten. "She wants to take the power from the bone."

Erin looked confused, you had to be whole to have power, at least that's what she thought. Vlad's full power wasn't unleashed until he became whole with his reflection. "What power?"

Bertrand shook his head; there was power in the bone that's why he'd taken it. He'd never needed to use it he wished he'd destroyed it. "She knows it wasn't destroyed with the rest of Sethius, so his power must be in that bone to have protected it."

"Like Boris did from the blood mirror." Ingrid looked at Vlad.

Vlad shook his head, there wasn't a chance of that. "There's nothing there to conduct it, it'll never work." The bone needed a conductor, a blood mirror would do that but no one knew Sethius' clan so it wouldn't work. His mirror had probably been long since destroyed.

Ingrid turned to Vlad, "Unless she has a clean vampire mirror to conduct the power, one not bound to any clans."

"Any mirror would do." Bertrand whispered to her. "The clans wiped out by the slayers three years ago, their mirrors would be reset back to nothing. They'd become a vampire mirror ready to be reassigned to new clans – only Vlad has the power to do that."

Erin shook her head, it seemed Olga was finally going to get her power. "Once she's done that she'll be as powerful as Vlad."

Fear crossed Ingrid's face. "If not more." Sethius had been more powerful than Vlad at the time; there was no way to be sure that it still wasn't true. Sethius knew how to handle his powers, he had come from a time where vampires' powers hadn't been diluted by breeding, he was one of the first. Vlad's powers matched those of the original vampires but he was supposed to be the most powerful vampire that ever existed so there must be something that he was missing, something that added to his powers.

Vlad looked at Bertrand, they needed to stop Olga, "Which mirror is she going for?" Olga would have told him thinking he was her most loyal servant.

"Olga's going for the…" His voice came out as a gurgle, "The…" The choking began again.

"It's reasserting itself!" Vlad cried, rushing towards Bertrand. He needed to protect Erin and Ingrid, he didn't know whether Bertrand might fit like he'd done in the chair and unintentionally hurt them or not, he couldn't take the risk.

Bertrand's eyes turned black and he threw Vlad backwards, smashing through the table turning it to little more than splinters. The darkness in his eyes ended the moment he'd used his powers and he doubled over coughing and sweating. No vampire could match Vlad for stamina in the terms of power.

His head snapped up as he remembered there were others in the room.

His lip curled as he advance on Erin, he looked at her his hand outstretched he would hit her stomach.

He drew his fist backwards, preparing to hit her.

Erin couldn't get out of the way fast enough; she closed her eyes and hoped the baby would be okay.

TBC

A/N: Thanks for reading.