4. Chapter 4 (1/2)

don't know if anyone's still reading - wouldn't blame you if not - but here's some more. enjoy!

disclaimer: i don't own yd. obviously.

when he woke in the evening, malik stayed still for a while, feigning sleep and thinking about everything that had changed. it felt as though his unlife had been turned completely upside down.

for three hundred years, he had been alone. he had been certain that it would always be so, that he was where his bloodline would end - that he was where it should end, because what could he offer a woman or a child besides a chance that his mother's insanity might be genetic? now… now he found himself lying close to erin, the most important person in his unlife, his hand resting protectively over her stomach. he found himself lying with the possibility of a family. and here, in this unguarded moment between sleep and waking, he could admit that he wanted that. he wanted that future so badly that his heart felt as though it might burst.

but it wasn't his decision to make; he had always felt that imposing his will on someone else's body was wrong, unless to fight or to feed. he would never have slept with erin if she hadn't wanted it; he wouldn't ask her to bear a child if she didn't want to, either.

for the moment, he had the love of his unlife in his arms and the beginnings of their baby under his fingertips, and that was enough. that would be enough.

erin woke and pressed herself backwards, further into malik's arms, content to be there. he seemed fast asleep, still, his hand splayed across her abdomen. for a few blissful seconds, everything was simple, and then she remembered.

pregnant. the expression 'a pregnant pause' had never made as much sense as it did to her right now; such a pause was loaded with expectation and tension and uncertainty, and now so was she. her life had taken so many unplanned twists already; getting mixed up with vampires, then becoming one; running away with malik and then falling truly, fatally in love with him; now she was pregnant and a part of her just wanted to make it stop, to claw back some semblance of control over her life.

but erin had always dreamed of having a family. a real family, not one obsessed with slaying the undead, not a legacy to pass on. when other little girls had outgrown their baby dolls, she had held onto hers, had picked it up and held it in private moments, until finally her parents had taken it to the charity shop while she was at school. she had dreamed, secretly, of finding someone normal - not a slayer, just a person with interests and good qualities - to settle down with, to raise a child with through sunshine and storms. then ryan had been bitten, and then she'd met vlad, and then she'd met malik… normal had seemed a distant dream for a long time now, but that family she'd imagined didn't seem so very far out of reach, not at this moment. in fact, if malik had meant what he said about doing this together, it was so close she could touch it. malik's thumb swept across her skin, and she felt all the longing she'd suppressed for so long rise up again.

that didn't mean she should have this baby. it didn't mean she could. she was so young, and new to being a vampire, and she had no idea what raising a little vampire entailed. would they have to be tied to the dracula blood mirror? what would the other draculas think? and then there were the things she didn't know about babies in general; how could she hope to teach a child to walk, to talk, to feed itself? fear gripped her suddenly and she clutched at malik's hand on her skin; he jumped, but didn't pull away.

"malik. i can't- how am i supposed to do this?"

there was a long silence, malik holding her hand tightly as he considered his next words.

"you don't have to." there; he wanted her to get rid of it, he didn't want to be a parent. "the pregnancy bit, the giving birth… i can't help with that as much as i'd like. but if it's the bit after that you're worried about… for what it's worth, i think we can do it. together. if that's what you want."