Princes of the Undead

Part 38

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It took a few moments for her words to sink in, and when they did Dracula was literally shocked back into being human, his fangs receding and the blood rage abating.

"What?"

"You heard me. I said yes, I said we can have a child; I will bear you one and then...well we'll see how it goes after that, but one, I can agree to one." Agatha was frightened by the very thought of it, yet she had conquered her fear before, and her mind was capable of unpicking that most of her fear was irrational at best.

She was undead, she couldn't die in childbirth. Dracula was not her father, if anything he would want to be more involved with the babe's upbringing than Agatha did herself; she would probably need to fight him to get some one on one time with their child. She wouldn't be alone, trapped with half a dozen children demanding her everything, every day and night, until her patience finally snapped. History was not going to repeat itself.

"You...you've changed your mind, you want to do this?" Dracula couldn't help but ask, stepping closer as he examined Agatha's face for any hint of enchantment or trickery.

"I've changed my mind yes, as for the other bit, well want is a strong word. I want to make you happy, I want to stop allowing fear to make my life choices for me, that's a start."

For a moment Dracula had been so close to having everything, his whole world had opened up, and then it had crashed and burned in front of him. "No."

"No?" Of all the things Agatha had ever expected, it had not been that Dracula would be the one to refuse. "I don't understand I thought this was what you wanted?" She added, unable to keep the hurt and confusion completely from her voice. "I thought it would make you happy?"

"How could I be happy knowing I had forced you into a situation that in any other circumstance you wouldn't want?" Dracula shook his head. "No, I won't do it, and you cannot make me."

"Make you?!" Agatha spluttered giving into the urge to punch his arm and force him around to face her.

"Now you listen here Count Dracula, this wasn't an easy thing for me to say, let alone even think about. I have spent all of my adult life being afraid of something, because of what I experienced as a child. I tell you I am finally ready to move forward, to stop letting that trauma control the choices we make, about our lives, and you dare to tell me no!"

"You don't want to have my child." Dracula shook his head. "It is not fair to you, and certainly not fair to the child, to have a mother that didn't even want to carry it..."

"Now you...Grrrrr." Agatha couldn't help but get mad, this time pushing his shoulder and forcing him back a step.

"How dare you accuse me of being a bad mother! Haven't I been there every damn step for the kin you created, haven't I nurtured and taught them, protected them, loved them, even if every single one was practically an insult directed straight at me. I didn't want or even plan for them but I still give them my best. How could you think I would treat my own child as some sort of obligation?!"

"Agatha..."

"No, you complete arse, you don't get to speak. I may be frightened about being pregnant and giving birth, and I have every right to fear that, you know I do. But just because I have wanted to avoid exposing myself to that, does not mean I would resent the child, that I wouldn't be able to love it just as well as any other mother would!"

Of all the things Agatha had taken offence to, Dracula never expected she would seize on that; accuse him of being ungrateful yes, accuse him of misunderstanding her almost definitely, but take offence over her relationship to a child that wasn't even conceived yet?

"I...I don't understand." Dracula finally admitted, Agatha had taken him on an emotional rollercoaster this evening, from leaving him at the castle with no word as to where she had gone, to tonight's conversation and this revelation; he was just about done in.

"Then listen to exactly what I am saying, not what you think I am saying, or are afraid I am not saying." Agatha did her best to rein her temper back in.

"I want to give you a child, yes I am afraid of carrying that child, but that is something you will help me get over. Once it is here, I promise I will love and care for it just as you will. I will not resent it for 'ruining my life' or being forced on me, because it will have done neither of those things. I am choosing to do this. It will be a part of us, how could I do anything but want it?"

"So...so you are not just doing this because you know it will make me happy, because you feel guilty?" Dracula had to ask, he had to be sure.

"I am doing this because I think it will make us happy." Agatha insisted, watching as the tentative hope that was in Dracula's eyes suddenly bloomed all over his face.

Laughing in sheer joy, Dracula scooped her up, spinning Agatha around before he lost his balance and they both tumbled in a mess of tangled limbs to the floor.

"And I was the one who had to take dance lessons." Agatha snorted from her awkward position, half on and half off of Dracula's torso. Squeaking slightly in surprise as Dracula turned them and she suddenly found herself against the grass with him hovering above her.

He was almost too nervous to ask, reaching over to tuck Agatha's hair behind her ear, as he often did when he was gathering his thoughts, unsure just how to vocalise something that involved his deepest feelings. "So, you mean we could...now...or in the future? I mean if you wanted to wait..."

Hooking her fingers into gap between the buttons on his shirt, Agatha tugged Dracula closer, leaning up she brushed her lips against his. "We can wait if you are feeling stage fright, otherwise Count you have my permission to rush your nun." She added teasingly.

It was a good job she didn't need to breath, Dracula's lips crushed hers beneath his own, and he pressed her down into their earthy bed, they had a baby to make and there was no time like the present.

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