A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

This is where it gets longer… a really weird feeling.

Is there a limit people want for chapters (I'm ignoring my 'friend' completely)? I know how many chapters it's roughly going to be but I want to know if anyone has a cut-off point that they want.

Chapter 30: Mortality or Immortality

"Hey." Erin whispered, stroking his cheek. Vlad looked up at her, his eyes softening as he looked at her. He felt tired and strange for some reason.

"Hey." He answered back to her; Erin leaned forward and rested her head against his. She felt herself calm at him being awake. She inhaled his scent it was a touch stronger than before but nowhere near the same level of strength as Robin's was or any other breather's for that matter. The sensation was confusing her, she didn't understand it.

Erin kissed him lightly, he still tasted the same but he was a fraction warmer. He wasn't as warm as she'd been as a breather though. Vlad pulled back as unfamiliar sensation took over – he needed to breathe.

"I'm breathing." He muttered, partly in horror and partly in amazement "It's because of an infection… right?" His head was pounding and his leg was hurting but apart from that he didn't feel ill – which was worrying.

Erin shook her head her eyes watering. "She took your reflections, losing them made you mortal."

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For the first time Vlad looked down and swathe bandages that covered his leg, they were blood soaked. He reached down but Erin moved his hand away from there, she didn't want him hurting himself. She wanted him to relax and remain calm.

"Erin?" He hoped she was joking, he didn't remember anything after yanking that shard of mirror from her leg.

Erin gave him a small shrug, trying to lighten her words for him but she wasn't succeeding. "You always wanted to get out of it." She told him with a watery smile.

"Not like this." He whispered it had been something he'd always wanted but now he finally had it he didn't want it. Vlad never thought he'd feel that way but now he was given a choice he wanted to be a vampire.

He'd achieved his dream, vampires and breathers living together in peace. He had a family for the first time since he was a child and he had his own child on the way. He wanted his powers to protect them, he hated having to survive on blood even if it was soy blood but he needed to be able to look after Erin and their child. Erin couldn't be expected to protect all of them when she was heavily pregnant, her pregnancy was advancing and she would soon be showing.

He didn't want Olga to find out about the vamptot.

He'd learned to cope with being a vampire; it had taken him eighteen years until he met Erin to do so though. He'd run away from it all of his life but he now had everything that he thought he'd never have. He couldn't go back, he was happy with the way things were… had been.

"I don't know what to do." Erin whispered to him, she'd never heard of this before neither had Vlad. She was angry at Olga for even trying such a thing. "It's what you wanted but…"

Vlad shook his head fiercely, "I don't want it." He told her grabbing her hand and lacing their fingers together, Erin gave him a strange look she clearly wasn't sure she believed him. "I don't want to be mortal." He promised her, using his eyes to stress his point.

Erin was confused now, he'd never said anything about it. She'd just assumed that because he didn't talk about it that he'd learned to accept that he couldn't change it. "You always…"

"That was before I bit you before we had a chance to be together properly and have a family of our own." Erin was slightly relieved hearing the words tumbling from his lips. She kissed him lightly taking care to remember he had to breathe. She now knew how Vlad felt when she'd been mortal. Vlad let her deepen the kiss, bringing his hand up to cup the back of her head and guide her in their kiss. Their tongues battled briefly before Vlad pulled away with a gasp.

"I will find a way to undo this." She promised him, "I will undo it." She wasn't going to rest until he was by her side once more.

Vlad was bitter now, there was no way he could become a vampire again. Without his reflections he couldn't absorb them to regain his fangs and he couldn't be bitten because he'd be loyal to them, if a bite even took thanks to his mating mark. "Erin my reflections are gone, there's nothing we can 'do' about it."

Erin let out a hiss, shoving herself upwards, the bed creaking and cracking under the force she'd used to push herself up. "Until you're more positive I'm going outside."

Vlad couldn't see what there was to be positive about. His reflections had been destroyed when the mirror was destroyed. There was no denying that, nothing could have survived that. The remnants of the mirror were shattered into too small a piece for anything to be done about it. He was mortal for the foreseeable future

"Erin…" Vlad called after her, Erin ignored him completely and slammed the door shut forcing its hinges to be bent back even further than before.

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"I'm going after her." He told Octa fiercely and spun around on the bed. Vlad forgot about his leg and played his weight on it gasping at the exertion of his actions. Octa gripped his shoulders and pushed him back down.

"How much does your wife know about vampire culture?" Octa asked him, applying a salve to his leg. Vlad winced as it made his fresh burn sting. He wished they'd given him stitches seeing the vicious looking burn on his thigh.

"Enough." Vlad answered, Erin knew all the basic facts, well most of them.

Octa didn't look up at him, she concentrated on making sure every millimetre of his wound was covered in foul smelling green salve. "She knows about everything vampire customs, even half fangs and their…"

"Yes!" He shouted not wanted to hear anymore, it had been covered far too often. "She knows about half fangs and the problems with their pregnancies."

In the terms of vampire culture. Erin didn't know everything. There were some things he had to show her for her to understand. Erin had wanted to learn for years and that was part of her excitement for coming here. Not that they'd had much time to look at everything, it had all been too quick, too sudden finding Olga and the bone. Vlad should have known no could come of it.

Octa reached behind her, her fingers brushing across the edges of a clean bandage. He had a temper, she hadn't expected that. "I wasn't going to say pregnancy." She was short and sharp with him.

He tipped his head to one side and rolled his tongue in his mouth. "Then what?"

Octa tugged on the bandage, making sure that it was secure around his leg before wrapping it around his thigh. "I'm not going to tell you until you've calmed down."

"I am calm." He tried but it came out as more of a growl than an actual calm statement.

She raised an eyebrow, "You're not." She glanced back over towards the door, seemingly looking through it for Erin. "I'll talk to her, you need to rest."

Vlad opened his mouth to speak but nodded, he'd listen – this once.

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Erin twisted the glass that had nearly killed her husband around in her fingers. It was still as sharp as ever and coated in his blood. She couldn't get her mind around the fact that Vlad had been bleeding.

"He needs you." Octa told the young vampire.

Erin nodded, she just didn't know how to deal with it. She was angry that he'd give up before he'd even try. This reminded her of trying to save Ryan but the ironic part was now she was trying to return Vlad to his vampiric state.

Erin wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to hug their child for comfort. Their child was all that remained of his power.

"Everything will be fine." Octa tried to reassure her with a smile. "You're both too stubborn to let his cousin win."

"How can it be fine? He'll die in fifty years, his reflections are gone…" Erin spun around. She couldn't live without him; this was part of the reason she wanted to become a half fang in the first place so he wouldn't have to deal with losing her. Erin couldn't go through that. Her next thought was spoken in desperation, "I can bite him…"

Octa shook her head, Erin wasn't thinking clearly. "A half fang can't transform anyone." It was true; they didn't have the toxins in them that full vampires had. "It doesn't matter anyway."

How could Octa say that? Of course it mattered; it mattered to their whole world. "Why not?"

"Because he's not mortal." Octa told her firmly.

"But…" Vlad had nearly bled to death, it was clear for everyone to see. What else could he be?

"He's not mortal." She repeated again, louder this time. There was proof enough that Vlad wasn't mortal, even if it wasn't obvious to the casual observer. Octa could sense it clearly.

Hope glimmered within Erin, there must be a reason for her to say this. "How do you know?"

Octa turned away from her, tossing her words over her shoulder to the wind. "Not everything is always as it seems."

Erin grabbed Octa's shoulder and spun her back around to face her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Erin wasn't going to play word games now; she wanted an answer on the mortality of her husband.

Octa seemed shocked at being manhandled by Erin, the younger vampire was clearly burning with fury. She had her husband's passion and that was going to serve her well.

Erin folded her arms over her chest, she wasn't going to let Octa go until she got an answer.

TBC

A/N: What do you think?

Concerning Vlad's status remember to trust me… I'm not that cruel…

Well… I can be (in a way) but it never lasts long… I always feel too guilty for it to last…

Thanks for reading.