Chapter 6 - Eternity

Dayvid arrived in the early ours of the morning. I practically ran outside and invited him in. It was only then that I realised I was standing there in my pyjamas...

The first thing I did was show him into the bedroom, whereupon he spent a good few minutes just looking at Jasper. 

I forced myself to go into the kitchen and give him some privacy, but I couldn't help but hide the worry on my face.

I needent have worried. He came back in soon enough.

'He's beautiful.' He said quietly as he helped me clean up the dishes. 'You did a great job.'
'Thanks. Hey, you helped a bit.'
He chuckled.

'Look, I hate to say it but I've got to go to work now. Would it be okay if I drop by later?'
I smiled. 'Of course you can.'

Dayvid went to the stadium to warm up for his approaching game.

I made sure that Jass was asleep and sat down to watch some television whilst I waited for Dayvid's return. I'd readied something pretty special for when he came back.

After what seemed like forever, Dayvid came striding back across the grass.

'Hey there, Jass is snoozing so would it be okay if we go outside?
'Sure.' He smiled as we crept out of the door.

'So, how'd the game go?'
'Ah, not too well. We lost 3:16! I'm getting better, though. It's only my second game and I scored all the goals.'
'Jass and I'll have to come watch you sometime!' I laughed nervously.
'I'd love that.'
'Look, Dayvid, I've been wondering. Maybe I was too harsh on you before-'
'No. You were right. I left you when you needed me and there is no excuse for tha-'
'Dayvid, I want to give 'us' another shot.'
That shut him up.
'...Wow. Yes. I mean, are you sure?'
'One hundred percent. I've had almost nine months to think it over!'
'Wow.' He repeated. 'Wow. Yes, Liza. Yes, I want that too.'

He breathed a slow, peaceful sigh and stretched out under the stars with me.
'Thank you. For giving me another chance with you. Another chance with my son.'
'You're more than welcome, Dayvid.'
We sat there in companionable silence for a while. Not talking. Just enjoying us. 

'You see that star there? The tiny one, just to the west of Aquila?'
'Yes, I see it.'
'I discovered that star. I found it during my bout of depression after you moved away. Do you know what I named it?'
'What?'
'I named it Liza. I never gave up hope with you. Remember that.'
I looked longingly into his eyes and could take it no longer. I got up, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet.

'I am so very happy that you said yes.' I smiled.

I lent forward and planted a small but loving kiss on his lips.

Before I knew what was happening I was being swept into his arms and kissed passionately.

Oh, how I'd missed this.

I instructed Dayvid to shower and change into something clean then ran into the bedroom myself and put on a long evening dress. I also changed into my werewolf form, feeling much more comfortable and at ease when my senses were running wild.

I'd done a bit of DIY whilst Dayvid was at work.

I told Dayvid to come with me and gripped his hand, skipping out the front door and dragging him behind me. He laughed in delight when he saw what was waiting for us.
'Dayvid, I am a better person when I am by your side. That is why tonight, I wish to marry you, loving what I know of you and trusting what I do not yet know. I promise to laugh with you when times are good and endure with you when times are bad. I want to grow old with you. So now I give you my hand, my heart and my love, without condition, completely and forever.'
'I love you, Liza.'
'I love you too.'

I hadn't bought any rings but Dayvid always wore an old wedding ring that his mother had left him. He removed it from his finger without hesitation and slipped it onto mine.
'Dayvid, you can't!' I gasped. The ring was incredibly beautiful, antique carved bronze and set with tiny amethysts.
'That ring means a lot to me,' he said, 'But you mean way more.'

'Oh, Dayvid.'
'You've surprised me in the best way possible. I'm going to have a surprise for you in the morning.'

We slept together in the same bed for the first time in over a year.


That was the happiest day of my life.

Chapter 5 - Revelation

I don't think I have ever felt more love for such a tiny human being than for my son, Jasper Bird. I had originally settled on more common name but when I looked at his perfect little face I knew he needed something different. The birth was long and gruelling, but I would go through it again ten thousand times for this little guy. Dayvid had wanted to be with me for the birth but I asked the doctors to tell him to leave. Apparently he hung around outside the hospital for a while before a member of staff told him to go away. I felt more calm about being with him since the night he apologised to me, but giving birth on a hospital bed was neither the time nor the place for reunions.

I went into the bedroom and placed Jasper in the cot. I stroked his infant face with my fingers. He was surprisingly quiet for a baby. He had a very fine layer of dark, fuzzy hair on his head and soft, almost silvery skin. He took after his father. I sighed and kissed his forehead, standing back to admire this work of art that was my baby boy.

 All of a sudden, the strange, maddening feeling the full moon had brought out in me gripped my body. I was unable to move. I panicked as I began to hunch over and felt a tingling sensation crawl up my back.

Okay. You got me. I'm a werewolf. I'd been hiding it well, huh! I had been needing to change the whole night but I was unable to whilst pregnant. I really wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible but I supposed that I should embrace it. I was a mother now, after all.

I gave Jass a quick snuggle to make sure he knew it was still his mummy! I wanted to bring him up accepting of all supernatural types. After all, his father was a vampire, his mother was a werewolf and he lived in Moonlight Falls!

I slept so well that night!

Accepting as I was, I still transformed as soon as I woke up.

I made a note to clean up the hair on the floor.

I gave Jasper a quick feed and then did a few chores around the house.

Whilst paying the bills I discovered a strange package in the mail.

I retrieved the box and read the note attached.

'Dearest Elizabeth,

I know you must be getting pretty near your time now, or perhaps you've even had your baby, so Bernie and I have made this doll for you. Its name is Hatty. A local witch placed an enchantment on it. Your child should play with it and build a relationship. If they devote enough time to it, something magical will happen. I so hope that you are okay and that you've found a happy home in Moonlight Falls, we would love to come and visit you when the baby is older.

Yours lovingly, Adeline x

I placed the doll in Jasper's cot.

I made a few calls that morning. I rang Katie's mobile since I didn't really fancy speaking to my parents. She was thrilled at the news that she had a nephew and said that she would tell Mum and Dad. She was living in Sunset Valley then with her boyfriend, Brett. I made her promise to come and visit us some time. I also thanked Aunt Adeline for the doll and told her about Jass. She was planning on moving back to Moonlight Falls with her kids soon and I was really looking forward to having a few friendly faces around the place! I had always wanted a house full of children, but at the moment I wanted to concentrate on my beautiful baby. I also wanted to get into a stable relationship and climb up the career ladder a bit first so I could get a bigger house. It wasn't going to be long before Jasper outgrew his baby cot and started needing his own bedroom.

Full moons came and went and I even met some other werewolves whilst taking Jasper for a stroll in the park. I met the Wolff family who were an entire pack in their own right! The mother, Erica, gave me some newborn tips. I really liked Erica and we formed a  pack together. Added to that was her teenage son and a man who ran the elixir store. We also found a young werewolf woman with gorgeous red hair named Ophelia and a good-looking man with particularly pointy teeth called Briar. They were all really lovely and welcoming and I was becoming really good friends with them all. Especially Briar... Sometimes they all came round for some steak - I was getting to be quite the chef. It was so nice to finally have my own pack of werewolf friends! However, there was still something missing. A big hole of indeterminable shape in my life. I had a beautiful son, lovely friends and a stable job. But I needed someone really special to share it with.

One night I was putting Jasper to bad when I looked into his big dark eyes.
'Oh my, you don't half look like your father.' I exclaimed.
That made me think. I looked at my little baby and all I could see was Dayvid. From his curly black hair to his tiny, silver-skinned toes.

I knew what I had to do.

Shaking with nerves and the excitement of what I was about to do, I pulled out my mobile and slowly dialled the number of the one person I finally knew I needed above all others. Of whom I'd always known I'd needed. Of whom I'd always wanted. Of whom I had loved with all my heart since the moment I'd set eyes on him.

'Dayvid?'

Chapter 4 - Contractions

I drifted through the next few months of my pregnancy like in a bad dream, doing some low level police work and reading a lot. Branch (the fairy I was working for) was very kind and paid me some money for the work I'd done, even though I never completed it. I felt kind of bad for being so quick to judge him. I bought some baby stuff with the money. Just the essentials - a high chair...

... And a cot. I certainly wasn't looking forward to giving birth, but I knew that I played a part in getting myself into this mess, so I needed to look after the resulting baby. Dayvid had called me a couple of times but I hadn't really seen him around so I hoped that he'd gotten the message. I did find myself feeling lonely at times, after all, I had come home to settle down. I hadn't met any new potential love interests yet. For some reason being heavily pregnant didn't exactly have men rushing to ask me out.

However, I didn't want to spend the whole pregnancy moping about my house and I needed money to support an extra hungry mouth, so I talked to my neighbour to see if he wanted any investigative work done (which didn't require too much strenuous activity).

Turned out that he wanted some simple hacking done. I nipped out to the library and did it in a flash.  

I went back the next day and got §500, which I put straight into my baby fund.

I'd been eating literally nothing but strawberry ice cream for about a week and I'd finally gotten around to cleaning up all the bowls...

I spent most of my evenings watching soppy romantic films and thinking about how life would have turned out for me if I wasn't with child. Maybe Dayvid and I would still be together. Maybe we'd be travelling the world after finishing college like we'd always planned. Maybe he would be a world-class sportsman and I a world-class detective. Maybe we'd have a big, beautiful house that we would fill with laughter and love. Sometimes, when I had a few moments to think, I found myself feeling slightly sorry for being so harsh with him. We did have some wonderful times back in school. He was my first proper relationship and I was his. We were inseparable. His family was one of the oldest in Moonlight Falls - his grandparents were alive during the crusades and were some of the first vampires in Europe. The summer before I got pregnant, our whole class was at an arts camp in Twinbrook. We were away for two weeks. That was all it took. All it took to rip Dayvid's life apart, and subsequently mine. What we came back to haunts my dreams. Whilst we were away a small army of vampire slayers had invaded Moonlight Falls. All of Dayvid's family had been slain - his grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters. The town was distraught. All vampires currently 'living' in Moonlight Falls are either new blood or very lucky. I discovered I was expecting, went to Dayvid (by then living with a few survivors in the Van Gould house) who promptly turned me away. I understood why he was upset, but I was still blinded by my anger and feeling of mistrust. Then again, sometimes I still felt something towards him. I wasn't sure what, but there was definitely something.

 If I found myself with spare time then I went on long walks. I loved the beach and the park, but my favourite place was a beautiful waterfall on the outskirts of town. It was a place that I planned on taking my child when he or she was born. In a way, I wanted the baby to be out and in my arms. I couldn't do much whilst pregnant and it might be nice to have someone to come home to.

I had just come home from one such outing and headed straight to the toilet. I was already in my last month of pregnancy and I seemed to spend more time in the bathroom than out of it.

As I stood up, I had the fright of my life when I glanced out of the window.

He was staring at the door. I considered pretending I wasn't in, but I knew he'd seen me.

'What on Earth are you doing here!?'
'I've come to see you.'
'Yeah, I can  see that, but why!?'

'Liza, you're getting really near your time. I know you're angry with me, and with good reason, but you need somebody on standby to help you if you go into labour.'

'I've coped well on my own with the pregnancy. I think I can cope with the birth.'

'Please. Let me stay with you. You won't be able to drive if you're in labour and you'd still have to walk to get a taxi. I... I want to be a dad. I want to help raise this baby. If you'd let me then I would have been at your side throughout the rest of the pregnancy. I've regretted rejecting you every day since it happened. Liza, I want us to be a proper family. I've got plenty of money, maybe we could buy a house together, with room for a little one? I'll decorate the nursery myself!' I watched as his eyes glistened with the thought of starting a family. 'I've got a stable job at the stadium. I can provide for the three of us! Just you, me and a baby. A baby, Liza!'
'Dayvid, no.' I said calmly. His words were melting my heart but I just couldn't accept him back after resenting him all this time. His smile faded.
'I understand.' He said solemnly. 

There was a silence between us as we both stared at our feet. Upon glancing up, I noticed that his shoulder was smouldering slightly.
'Um, do you want to come in? It's getting kind of hot out here.'
A fraction of that smile creased his cheeks.
'I'd love to, thank you.'

We sat awkwardly watching a documentary together for a bit, at opposite ends of the sofa. After a while, I asked if he'd like to go outside a bit. Both of us are night owls so we feel more comfortable under the gaze of the moon.

He agreed and we stood outside making small talk and catching up a little. I hate to say it, but I really enjoyed his company.

Unfortunately, it was a full moon that night and we retreated back inside to get away from the zombie witches...

Dayvid sat quietly sipping some plasma orange juice (he's a vegetarian vampire!) but I felt a little sleepy so I went to bed. 

The full moon made me feel a little loopy so I decided to go to bed in my everyday clothes.

I wasn't asleep long before I was awoken by a sudden jolt in my belly. The baby had kicked and even hiccupped before, but he or she was suddenly getting really excited.

Then I realised why. I don't know if it was the full moon or the surprise of seeing Dayvid again, but a twist in my belly made me want to sink to the floor. I managed to steady myself and breathe through the rest of the contraction, but I knew the next one was coming.

Sure enough, the next one came quickly and a lot stronger. I was blinded by the pain. I only hoped that Dayvid was still here as I attempted to waddle into the sitting room. He was right - there was no way I was walking down my front steps alone, never mind making the ten minute drive to the hospital!

Luckily, he was sitting reading on the sofa.

He got up as soon as I came in.

'Dayvid. I need you to drive me to the hospital. I'm having the baby.'

A panicked look crossed his face as the child made another break for freedom.
'DAYVID!' I shrieked. 'NOW!'

He got the picture and drove me.