North American Vampire Council & Past Calling (Hypernaturals 12 & 13)

Family Reflection

My turn for a meeting with the boss came at long last. Also, the very last. No more one-on-ones after me.

I am not nervous about a meeting with my boss. I would have to care about keeping my job to be nervous.

I like Victoria. I respect her. I think she has her heart and mind in the right place and is the leader Vampiredom needs. She walks the tightrope of being political and being a genuine, accessible person better than anyone I ever met, and I include Helen in that. Helen is a political beast, but until very recently that overwhelmed her personal side. Not before she swept me along into this all-the-gods-forsaken role.

I am not nervous about a sit down to face the boss because I don't care if I am part of it or not. I am expressly not political and more importantly, I have little kids. I don't have time for bullshit.

Victoria and I are sitting in the kitchen located between the Olsen and Sagan PI office and my Council office. The Crew office connects to my office so they can easily get here too. That's part of my deal: you make me run this shit, I'll build kitchens for my Crew to relax in. You make them mine; they are my kids.

My many hundreds of years old kids.

Happy mom-to-be-again Angel is at her desk over on the Olsen and Sagan side of things, singing a song to our baby inside her. I can not see her, but I am sure she has her hands underneath the baby bump, cradling.

Women are so damn lucky. They get this time with our baby almost alone. I can look in IR. Listen, ear to tummy. It is not the same. So frustrating! At least with Jessica and Helen and now Vera, I contributed blood they needed as part of the bonding. I was able to be involved somehow.

Screw the Council when our baby is born. Paternity leave! Then I get to finally get to have a turn with her. Catori.

And with my little boy. Ben.

Vera and I having a boy baby is blowing everyone's minds still. Me? Don't care what gender. I am a little afraid that Ben will be like Rachel: Super competitive. Want to play sports. In which case, there will be a big sister delighted to have a sibling that cares about things like that, I suppose. I will try to understand, but I fail at that with Rachel now. A constant forcing myself to go to sporting events I dislike, but that has a little girl I love in them.

I am not at all shocked that if anyone was going to break the Vampire baby gender mold; it is Vera. Alexander had a hundred or so kids. All girls.

I guess Alexander never had a kid with Vera.

Yuch.

As if Vera would let him anywhere near her. She punched him out for looking at her with lustful intent not that long ago. She is insane with Vampire bonding lust, but not that insane. Her words.

Jessica agreed. She told Vera: "It takes a special kind of crazy to let that man inside you.", thereby calling herself crazy.

Mom and Jessica spend hours talking and theorizing about the genetics of Ben. It is not that boy babies of Vampire parents cannot happen: Last time that happened that we know about, Alexander was born of two Vampires. The two Doctors are boggled by the stats. Turn rates and known female Vampire birth rates mean that Ben is probably as much a statistical fluke as I am being a Hyper-sensed Vampire.

I'm his dad. Vera is the first-ever Siren turned Vampire. Vera also used VMC from both Morgan and me to turn. We know for a fact from turning other Sirens later that is far more VMC than she required. Vera turned quickly, recovered quickly. Ended up a hybrid of Morgan and me in that she will not be a full-strength female Vampire any more than Morgan, but she has my fangs.

I think for Ben there are extenuating stats. Everything about his parents is unique.

Vera flat out refused an amniocentesis procedure. That is not a fear of needles. That is a 'stay the fuck away from my child'. Never mind that they are after amniotic fluid, not our boy. She'll accept (demand) things inside her right now. None of them are needles near our baby.

"The only fucking damn thing coming inside me near my baby is his daddy or a sex toy, making his mommy happy. His daddy can knock on the nursery door all he likes. No. Needles." Vera flatly declared.

Jessica had been frustrated by that refusal and given me a look of appeal. She was not going to hurt the baby. Really? Like I get a say in a woman's body. Even if I did, which I don't, I would never even remotely try to override a mother making that kind of choice. Nope. Not going to happen.

The arc of Vera and babies. From trying to have one with me as a human, as a way to and by her own admission, get me to 'do the right thing', to telling Sirens if she got pregnant with a Siren father she would never put her kid in the creche to this.

Funny how sitting here now with Victoria, and all the Council responsibilities she engenders, makes me think about the thing I told Victoria takes precedence over Council: Family. My ongoing work/life balance struggle, and why my office is built like it is.