Hi again! Bet you didn't see that coming! Well, you might have done.
This chapter was kind of difficult because it could have gone one of two ways, but I hope you like what I decided!
Big thank you to stephanie101, XxCoolLikeFirexX, DauntlessPower, aj davis, Kris Ivashkov25, Jenna Blair, , .Belikov, FilmstarxXx, katherinesilvaswee and my three anonymous reviewers it is very much appreciated.
Hope you guys enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own VA
I woke the next morning, groggy and sleep deprived. There was just so much to process from yesterday and I was lying in bed for hours tossing and turning. Adrian never came up.
I walked downstairs, well waddled, it's like I went from not pregnant to massive over night. Seriously it's ridiculous. Adrian was asleep on the sofa where I left him last night, fully dressed with a couple of empty whiskey bottles on the floor. I sigh. I can't imagine what he's feeling. Or Dimitri for that matter.
There was a rustling from the kitchen so I head in there. Dimitri is pottering around; obviously he's just had a shower because his hair is wet. He's wearing sweats and a t shirt. I kind of wish I was wearing more than Adrian's t shirt, which had gathered around my tummy.
Dimitri looks up. "Whoa, you got big overnight! You must be nearly the right size now!" He smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes.
"I'm going to make some tea. Want anything?" I ask, filling the kettle with water. I noticed that when I stood by the counter I could only just reach the cupboards above. Yeah, pregnancy was going to get real annoying, real quick.
"I just made coffee, but thanks." Dimitri says, taking a seat at the breakfast bar across from me.
"Everyone else still asleep?"
"Yeah, but it is 6 in the morning."
I didn't realise it was that early. "Why are you up? You don't have patrol on Thursdays?" This making small talk is really hard. We're both trying to avoid the massive elephant in the room.
"Couldn't sleep." He sighs. "I'm so sorry, Rose. I wanted to tell Adrian, as soon as you started dating him I wanted to say but...there was never the right moment. You can't exactly go up to a royal like Adrian and say "oh yeah we're half brothers because I'm your father's illegitimate child."" He smiles a little but I can see the anguish in his eyes.
"You don't have to explain that to me, Dimitri. You have to explain that to Adrian. This is a lot for him to take him right now. Not only has he found out he has half siblings but he also has to deal with his father having an affair, a continued affair, for which he hasn't accepted any responsibility for." The kettle boils and I pour the water into my mug. I move to sit opposite Dimitri at the breakfast bar, struggling slightly getting on the high chair.
"Yeah that's a lot to handle. Plus with you two having kids of your own." Dimitri sips his coffee.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. It isn't awkward but I can tell Dimitri feels guilty.
"Well there is a plus side to all of this." I say after a while.
"What's that?"
"You've got me as a half sister-in-law." I look up at him and smile. "And even if Adrian doesn't accept you as family, I do. You've done so much for me, Dimitri and I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but I do care for you. I just want you to know that." I grab his hand and squeeze it gently. He squeezes back.
"Thank you, Rose. That means a lot."
"Morning!" Lissa breezes into the room, a grumbling Christian in tow. "Why are you two up so early?"
"Couldn't sleep." We say together and laugh. "What about you to?" I ask them.
"We were going to go shopping. Surprise you and Adrian with some stuff for the munchkins but that's kind of ruined now." Lissa sighs and pours out two cups of coffee. "You want to come? We can get a crib and stuff." She smiles broadly.
"Liss, I kind of wanted to do that stuff with Adrian, but," I continue when she starts to frown "we can get some clothes and stuff like that. It's just the big stuff I want to get with Adrian."
She nods. "That sounds fair. Anyone for breakfast?"
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At eleven o clock, Adrian is still asleep in the living room. Lissa, Christian, Eddie and Lissa's new guardian Ruby, are ready to go shopping.
"I should wake him really. I don't want him to worry where I am." I say and quietly step into the room and avoid the empty bottles.
As soon as my hand touches Adrian's cheek, he wakes up.
"What? Where am I?" He mumbles.
"You're in the living room. You fell asleep." I smile down at him and he sits up. "We're gonna go shopping for some baby stuff. Dimitri is staying here; he's moving the game stuff into the basement."
Adrian ignores my Dimitri comment. "Ok. I'll have a shower and stuff and join you later." He smiles, rubs his eyes and places his hands on my swollen tummy. "Whoa, you grew overnight didn't you, munchkins." He kisses my stomach.
"Yeah, damn inconvenience." I laugh. "I'll text you where we are. Please make sure you tell Dimitri, even if you just leave a note. He doesn't have to come with you if you don't want. He understands." I smile and kiss him lightly on the lips.
Adrian doesn't say anything as I leave the room and head out of the house.
Walking was incredibly tiring. My back hurt, my feet hurt and I had to keep stopping to sit down every so often, much to Christian's annoyance.
When we eventually got to the massive department store at Court we headed straight for the baby section. Christian and Eddie headed off somewhere, who knows what guys do?, leaving Lissa, me and Ruby alone.
I was overwhelmed by it all. So many different clothes and pacifiers and diapers and cribs and pushchairs. Why were so many?
"Where do we start?" I ask, after I text Adrian telling him where we are.
"How about basic stuff. Diapers, pacifiers and stuff. We can get those without knowing the sex. Clothes we can just get baby grows in different colours and get dresses or jeans or whatever when they're born." Lissa says, taking charge and grabbing a shopping cart.
"Lissa, how do you know so much more about it than me?" I ask uncertainly, trailing behind her.
"I don't. This is just what is logical, right? You and Adrian are going to pick out the furniture so all we can do is get the little bits and we can't get that much until we know what you're having." She shrugs and picks up two different types of diapers.
"Can I help you?" A Moroi woman in the early thirties comes and stands beside us.
"Yeah, that would be helpful. I have no idea where to start!" I laugh.
"I know what you mean; it is a bit overwhelming, more so for your first." She laughs. "You must be due soon judging by the size of you."
"Not until late November. I'm having twins." I beam at her.
"Congratulations! You and your," she looks, not so subtly, at my hand. "Husband must be delighted!"
The assistant, whose name was Kim and had four boys by her husband, was a massive help. She knew exactly what to get and I learnt so much from her about motherhood and pregnancy. She was like my guardian angel.
Although we didn't buy a crib or anything like that, she gave us so much information and advice about picking the best ones and gave me names of books and websites that expectant mothers and fathers can use to speak to others about concerns and advice. It made me feel so much better that I had access to a sort of support network.
"I wonder what happened to Adrian." Lissa asked when I was paying for our purchases. Adrian had given me a credit card and set us up a joint account, which I hate to say, I contributed very little to.
"Well I never heard back from him when I text. Maybe he didn't get the message. Knowing him, he probably lost his phone."
Eddie and Christian are in the little coffee shop on the ground floor. I noticed they had shopping bags of their own.
"Where did you to get to?" Lissa asks taking a seat next to Christian. I very ungracefully sit next to Eddie, Ruby hangs back a bit, acting as far guard I presume.
"We did a bit of shopping of our own." Christian says. "We were talking yesterday to Adrian about the munchkins. Having a nursery and stuff. So we got some decorating stuff. Wallpaper and paint." He shrugs.
"Thank you guys! Can I see what you got?" I beam at Christian; I suppose I can forgive his earlier complaining.
They got the cutest wallpaper ever. It was a light yellow with different pictures on it. Flowers, little boats, animals. They got some yellow paint of the same colour and got letter templates so we could paint their names on the wall.
"And I got you something for the room too. Well it's from all of us. It was Dimitri's idea actually." Christian says and hands it me.
It a picture frame that is a collage of photos from our time at the ski lodge right up to the wedding. All of us on here, Adrian, me, Lissa, Christian, Jill, Dimitri, Eddie, Mia and Mason. There was a caption at the bottom of the photo which read: "Families are like fudge-mostly sweet with a few nuts." How appropriate.
I'm speechless. It is so perfect and shows exactly the love in the family, how loved the munchkins are going to be.
"It's perfect. Thank you guys so much." I hug everyone and try to stop myself from crying. Stupid pregnancy.
We have lunch, talk turning back to Lissa and Christian's wedding. The guys complain the whole way through the conversation. It hits two o clock and we decide to head home. I still haven't heard from Adrian so I doubt he is going to turn up.
The walk home if even harder seeing as we have bags to carry. Well, everyone else has bags to carry they won't let me do anything. By the time we get home, I am shattered. Why is this so hard?
"Adrian? Dimitri?" I call when we get home.
I hear some noise from the basement so I head down there whilst everyone sorts out the shopping.
Entering the basement I see all the stuff from the games room as been moved and Dimitri and Adrian are playing some war game...laughing. How odd.
"Hey, guys." I say nervously.
They both turn around. "Hey, baby. I was going to come shopping but I thought Dimitri and I could have a talk." Adrian pauses the game as I sit down in an armchair.
"So you guys seem to have sorted it out?" I say
"Yeah. We figured why should a prick like our dad stop us being family? Yeah it was a shock but just think, Rose, I've always wanted a sibling and now I have four! I mean I haven't meet Dimitri's sisters but I'm going to pay for all of them to come over and stay for a while. Did you know I have nieces and nephews?" he smiles broadly.
"Yeah, Adrian wanted to know all about my family. I think this is the most we've ever spoken." Dimitri smiles.
I smile and them both and feel tears in my eyes. "I'm so glad you two could work this out."
"Baby, why are you crying?" Adrian comes and sits on the arm of the chair and brushes the tears away with his thumbs.
"Stupid pregnancy hormones." I laugh.
"Well let's see what you brought my little terrors." Adrian takes my hand and all three of us walk upstairs.
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By seven o clock in the evening, I am just about ready to go to sleep. Everything for the kids has been put into the chest of drawers in our room and the decorating stuff had been put in the now empty game room ready for the guys to make a start at the weekend.
After dinner I head up to our bedroom, which takes me almost double the time it did yesterday, to lie down. Adrian joins we a few minutes later.
"You ok?" Adrian asks.
"Yeah, just so shattered. My back hurts, my feet hurt, it just takes me ages to do anything." I grumble.
"I know. But it isn't for much longer. I just can't believe you got so big so quickly."Adrian chuckles. He places a hand on my tummy. "When do you think we can feel them kick?" he whispers.
As if on cue, I feel a tiny, little nudge from inside and Adrian beams. I feel tears in my eyes.
"I guess they heard you." I giggle.
"It's good to know they'll do as their father tells them." He smirks and rests his cheek onto the tummy. Another kick.
We lay like this for ages. The babies don't kick much more but they have definitely made their presence known.
"Just for the record, I have vetoed Dexter."
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