Amelia & Andrew: The Diamond Legacy Ch. 04

Here is the next chapter of Amelia and Andrew I hope you enjoy it. I would like to thank Kalamazoo707 for all her hard work editing this chapter.

Thank you for reading my offering and please take a moment to vote and comment.

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Andrew decided to take the ninety five through the new tunnel. He would get off at Pulaski Highway and then take that into Philadelphia. It was a longer route but he was in no hurry. It would take about three to four hours before they reached their destination making their arrival time between midnight and one am.

Meatloaf's 'bat out of hell' played in the CD player, and everyone was singing although a bit off key. No one seemed to mind, they were just having a good time. When the song was over, Andrew made a suggestion.

"Let's find a motel when we get into Delaware."

Everyone agreed and then continued to sing with the music. When 'Objects in the Rear View Window' came on.

"if they had to keep listening to such ancient music. Can we stop for a Slurpee?" Catherine teasingly asked.

Andrew pulled into the first seven-eleven he saw, and they all went in. Amelia loaded up on snacks saying that no matter how much you ate, you still had to have snacks for a trip.

Andrew found a nice roadside motel just outside of Wilmington. He rented two rooms and asked the clerk for a nine am wake up call. After checking in, they each went to their respective rooms. Andrew and Amelia went to bed, and fell asleep in each others arms.

*****

Scott was trying to make love to Catherine, but she was just too tired.

"You shouldn't be this tired." Scott said concerned, "let me go get Andrew and Amelia."

"I'm fine." Catherine said. "It's been a stressful day, and there've been a lot of changes for me in a short period of time. And after last night, I think that I have the right to be tired. You wore me out."

Scott looked at her. He knew that something was wrong. Her color was off and she looked exhausted. He didn't care if she objected or not, he was going to get Andrew and Amelia. Catherine could feel the fear coming from Scott and knew that the fear wasn't for him, but for her.

As he dressed, Catherine argued with him.

"You're being foolish." She said. "I'll kick your ass if you go and wake them up."

"Then you can kick my ass." He replied as he continued to get dressed. "I'm going to get Amelia and if you don't like it, tough shit."

Scott left the room before she could say anything. Catherine knew that was worried, but so was she. She couldn't come up with a logical reason for why she was so tired. She thought that maybe it was because of her powers, but she hadn't been using them all that much or had she? The next thought was that something had gone wrong with the change. She lay in bed and tried to keep her imagination at bay.

Scott went to Andrew and Amelia's room and knocked on the door.

"Scott?" What's wrong? Andrew asked when he opened the door to the room.

"I think that there's something wrong with Catherine." Scott nervously replied. She's exhausted and her color is all wrong."

Andrew could smell Scott's fear, and knew that it was for Catherine.

"Go back and sit with her." Andrew said. "We'll be over in a minute.

Amelia was already getting dressed even before the door closed. Andrew quickly dressed and they rushed over to Scott and Catherine's room. They were shocked at Catherine's appearance.

"Did you drink from her again?" Andrew asked.

"No, I swear." Scott replied shaking his head.

Andrew went out to the hummer, and took four bags of blood from the fridge. He put them in a bag and hurried back to Catherine and Scott's room. When he returned, he sent Scott to his room to get his cell phone.

"I need to call Susan." Andrew said. "Maybe she can shed some light on what's happening."

Andrew took a unit of blood out of the bag and handed the bag to Amelia. He began feeding Catherine the blood, but it wasn't until the third unit that she began to look and feel better.

"Why do I need so much blood?" she asked.

"I don't know." Amelia replied." We're going to call Susan and see if she can help us."

Andrew dialed Susan's number speaking as soon as he heard her pick up.

"Susan, we have a problem with Catherine."

"Andrew?" Susan asked. "Sorry, you woke me up. What's the problem with Catherine?"

He could hear Gloria in the background asking what the problem was, and waited until he had Susan's full attention. He described what Catherine looked like and her symptoms.

"Yesterday she woke up pale and tired." He said. "We weren't too concerned because she and Scott shared blood. We thought that they had gotten overzealous so we gave her some blood and warned them to be more careful. Tonight she looked really bad, and it took three units of just to get her color back."

"Where are you?" Susan asked.

"We're at a motel by Wilmington." Andrew replied wishing that he had kept driving to Philly. "We weren't in any hurry so we decided to stop, and get a fresh start in the morning. We planned to arrive early so that we could find a decent place to stay before we called Charles."

"Alright," Susan said with a sigh. "Don't drive like a maniac to get here. If I'm right, Catherine will be fine. Just give her a large cup filled with blood to sip on while you travel. If Charles isn't there, see Emma. She is Charles' business manager, and her mate is his personal assistant.

"What do you think is wrong with her?" Andrew asked worriedly.

"Nothing is wrong with her." Susan replied. "Just get her to the club. Someone will be there to check her out and help her. I don't want to say anything more until I'm sure. Gloria and I will be there by the end of the week."

"Alright, we'll see you then." Andrew replied. He felt a little better but was still concerned.

"Scott, go to the hummer and grab one of the large cups and wash it out. After that, help Catherine get dressed and pack up your things. We'll be back after we pack up our things."

Andrew went back to their room, packed up their few belongings, packed the hummer and checked them out of the hotel. He settled the bill explaining that they had gotten an emergency call and that they had to get on the road.

Twenty minutes later, they were on their way to Philly. The drive took almost three hours because of construction that had closed all but one lane on the ninety-five.

The club looked as if it was closed when they drove up. They were about to leave when Catherine saw a sign instructing anyone having business with the club after hours to go to the rear door. Andrew quickly parked the hummer and reached under the seat for the Glock.

"Baby leave it." Amelia said. "We aren't here for trouble."

"Old habits die hard." Andrew replied with a smile as he got out of the hummer.

Andrew helped Amelia out of the hummer while Scott helped Catherine who for the moment seemed to be in perfect health. They walked to the back of the building, and were surprised to find a parking lot full of vehicles. There casually dressed vampires standing by the back door that smiled at and then greeted them. Andrew could tell that they were all packing and judging by their appearance was a professional security team. The smallest of them stood six feet three inches tall and was built like a middle linebacker.

"Where is your car?" he asked.

"It's parked out in the front." Andrew replied. "We're here to see Mr. Black, is he here?"

I'm sorry." The vampire replied, "But he's gone for the evening. Is there something that I can help you with? I am Mitchel Orion, Mr. Black's head of security."

"I'm Andrew Barnes." Andrew said extending his hand. "Is Emma here?"

He noticed that at the mention of Emma's name, the vampires began to fan out and took defensive postures.

"What is your business with Ms. Black?" Mitchel asked.

"We aren't here to cause trouble." Andrew replied keeping his tone neutral. "Susan Dorchester sent us and told us to ask for Emma if Mr. Black wasn't here."

After the briefest of seconds, everyone began to relax.

"Ah... Officer Martin." Mitchel said with a smile. "Ms. Dorchester told me that you were coming. I apologize for what just happened; we didn't know who you were. If you'll give the keys of your vehicle to Kirk, he'll move it to the back of the building. In the meantime, we can get Ms. Catherine taken care of."

Andrew handed the keys of the hummer to Kirk, and followed Mitchel and the others into the club. They were led up a set of rear stairs to a private office. Mitchel knocked on the door, and waited for a response.

"Enter." A feminine voice said.

Mitchel opened the door, and showed them in.

"Catherine." Emma said, "Please sit. If mother is correct, you'll need to save your strength. Mitchel, could you please get Agatha? I think she's in one of the private rooms."

Scott helped Catherine to one of the couches as Mitchel left the office to find Agatha.

"Can I get any of you anything while we wait for Agatha?" Emma asked.

They all declined. They were too worried about Catherine. Emma watched as Scott hovered over Catherine. She could see that he was worried and could imagine his reaction once he knew the truth.

"Why don't you and Amelia go have a drink?" she said to Andrew. "Agatha needs to examine Catherine, and I don't think that she will be comfortable with you here. Scott can stay as long as he behaves himself and lets Agatha do her job."

"Who is Agatha?" Amelia asked.

"Agatha is a vigoratus, a medium uxor specifically." Emma replied.

Amelia's eyes widened in shock as her high school Latin came back to her.

"Why in the hell would she need a midwife?"

"There's only one reason why a woman would need a midwife." Emma replied chuckling.

The meaning of Amelia's question hit the rest of them like a ton of bricks. Scott's eyes widened. His lips twitched, and then broke into a big smile as he let out a loud whoop.

"Ho... I mean we just mated. There was no one else before him." Catherine sputtered in disbelief.

"Congratulations!" Andrew exclaimed clapping Scott on the back.

"It's different for vampires." Emma explained to Catherine. "When one of us becomes pregnant, we know it almost immediately. The gestation period is considerably shorter than that of a human. A human pregnancy lasts approximately two-hundred and eighty days whereas ours last about one -hundred and forty days.

During your pregnancy you will need six to eight units of blood per day, and once the baby is born, he or she will require blood as well as mother's milk. The best way is to breast feed the baby so that he gets both milk and blood at the same time. That means that your blood intake will be high for the first two years of the child's life.

Catherine paled as the implications of the pregnancy hit her.

"How long before the baby comes? What are we going to do? I don't know anything about babies! I'm only eighteen! I can't have a child yet!"

"I don't think we have a choice." Scott said laughing. "We'll figure it out together." He added.

"You'll have plenty of help." Emma assured her, "but the first order of business is to confirm that you are in fact, pregnant. After that you can begin to make plans as to where you will live. I understand that both the Baltimore and the Jackson, Mississippi areas are out, but there are plenty of other areas to choose from."

"We won't abandon you." Amelia assured Catherine, "You and Scott are family and you're my number one." She turned to Andrew and beamed. "We're going to be grandparents!"

"I know." Andrew replied smiling. "We're going to need a place to stay while we get them settled, are there any nice hotels around here?"

"There are several." Emma replied. "We also have some rooms here that are available for rent. They're up on the third floor."

"That would be great." Andrew replied. "I gather that this place never really closes?"

"No, it doesn't. They serve excellent food here, and you can buy special diet items. Would you like a couple of rooms?" Emma asked.

"You make it difficult to say anything but yes." Andrew replied. "Yes, we'll take a couple of rooms."

"Fine, but I hope that you aren't going to cause any trouble in my club." Emma said the warning in her voice clear.

"I promise that we won't cause any trouble." Andrew said holding his hands up in surrender.

Andrew could see that Emma was a force to be reckoned with. Under that soft demeanor was a core of iron. He had no doubt that she would enforce the peace in any way that she deemed necessary, including taking someone apart.

There was a single tap on the door before a large Native American male walked in without waiting for the invitation to enter. He spoke before he realized that there were other people in the office.

"Sweetheart, I was wondering if we were staying here or going home tonight."

When he realized that Emma had company, he apologized.

"I'm sorry; I didn't realize that you had visitors."

"It's alright." Emma replied with a smile. "They're friends of mother's. The ones that father invited to visit."

"Oh yes, the parvulus." The big man said, "But I thought that they weren't coming until tomorrow night."

"That was the plan, but they thought that something was wrong with Catherine and called mother. She told them to come tonight."

"Is everything alright with her?" He asked.

"She's fine." Emma replied. "She's pregnant and wasn't taking enough blood. "

Emma turned to address the group.

"This is my mate Neil Redcloud. Neil, this is Andrew and his mate Amelia. The young lady on the couch is Catherine and the nervous looking young man is her mate Scott."

Pleasantries were exchanged but Neil was still concerned.

"How much blood has she had today?" he asked.

"She's fine." Emma replied, "And we'll be staying here tonight."

There was another tap on the door and a woman walked in.

"Agatha! It's about time you got your ass up here." Emma said when the woman walked in. "Is your age catching up with you?"

An extended middle finger was the only reply Agatha gave. Andrew and Amelia excused themselves, and headed toward the bar for a drink. Emma and Neil followed them to give Agatha the privacy she needed to perform her examination.

Agatha started out by smiling at Catherine in an attempt to put her at ease. Next, she asked what seemed to be a strange question.

"Did you get any funny feelings in your vaginal area or in your lower abdominal area after making love?"

Catherine looked at her and nodded her head yes.

"Did you exchange blood while you were making love?" Agatha asked.

Catherine's face turned a bright red, but Scott was the one who answered.

"She mentioned that she had a weird feeling when we exchanged blood. How can you be so sure that she's pregnant? I mean this just happened last night."

Agatha did a quick but thorough examination. Unlike human doctors, the only thing that she needed to tell if the girl was pregnant was her nose. She could smell the subtle odors of the hormones that a woman gave of when she was pregnant.

"Most vampires can tell you the moment they conceive." Agatha explained. "I'm sure that you've been told the gestation period for vampires is approximately half that of humans. In one hundred and thirty nine days, you will be parents.

Catherine, you will need to drink at least six units of blood in addition to what you usually drink. In the old days, pregnancy was a very dangerous time for us. The female needed increased amount blood which invariable drew attention to the area without her having her abilities to protect herself it's much easier now that we have blood banks. I thought for sure that we were going to lose Susan, and we might have if not for Charles but that is their story to tell. The biggest indicator that you are going into labor is that the day or two before, your blood intake will dramatically increase.

If you are staying in the area, and would like to use me as a doctor, I would like to see you in my office on Monday. If you are leaving the area or don't want to use me, I would suggest that you find a doctor soon. Chances are that sometime in the next two or three weeks your powers will stop working. They won't return until after the birth of the baby. Here's my card. Call me tomorrow if you want to set up an appointment. I want to get back to that delicious man I was with before Mitchel told me you were here."

"How are we going to do this" Catherine asked Scott when they were alone.

"The same way every other parent on the planet does it...one day at a time." Scott said. "I'm sure that we'll make mistakes, but we'll learn and we'll be good parents. I like Agatha, how do you feel about her taking care of you and the baby?"

"I like her too." Catherine replied.

They held each other as they began to plan their future and began the dreaded task of picking a name for the baby. Catherine soon gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep with her head resting on Scott's shoulder.

*******

Andrew and Amelia went to the bar area. After finding a table, Andrew went to the bar and ordered drinks. He returned to the table with a beer for himself and a glass of wine for Amelia. For several minutes they listened to the music; neither of them speaking.

Finally, Amelia spoke.

"Andrew, what are we going to do?"

"We're going to follow our plan." He replied. "If Scott and Catherine want to settle down here, we'll help them and then go about making a life for ourselves. The thing is I don't know what I want to do. The only thing that I ever wanted to be was a cop. I don't know if I can go back to that; but I'd like to try. What about you? Have you thought about what you would like to do?"

"I wanted to be a psychologist and was in the process of deciding what kind when a recruiter from the bureau showed up and gave a talk. I was fascinated. I ended up signing up and ended up working with VICAP. My first assignment was helping to provide background info on the Seaside Strangler case. I like everyone else worked on the aftermath of nine-eleven.

I was assigned to the team that profiled several suspected terrorist. I also headed up the team that helped to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor that was scheduled for December 7, 2006. That never made the news because we took the terrorist out before they reached the U.S. I had just returned to VICAP when I pulled your case and I'm glad that I did."

Andrew was surprised, proud and amazed at Amelia's accomplishments.

"What was it like to work those kinds of cases?" he asked.

Amelia closed her eyes to think about her answer.

"I was under a lot of pressure especially with the nine-eleven case." She replied. "Don't get me wrong, it felt good that our profile helped in breaking the network that enabled those bastards to attack us. There's still a lot of information that hasn't been released to the public and may never be. But the pressure was horrendous."

"What degrees do you have?" Andrew asked.

"I have a doctorate in psychology and a JD degree." Amelia replied. "When I was I college, I had no life; I think I had a total of three dates. I went into the academy right after graduation. I was happy and my parents were so proud. My dad carried a picture of my graduation from the academy in his wallet and was even buried with it."

Amelia stopped talking and looked away. Tears stung her eyes as she thought about her father. She still missed him. She regretted that she hadn't spent more time with him, but she had been busy building a career and thought that she had more time.

Andrew wrapped his arms around her ad gave her time to work through her grief.

Amelia returned the hug and asked Andrew about himself.

"There isn't much to tell." He replied shrugging his shoulders. "As you know, I was married and I have a kid. She remarried and lives on the west coast with my son. I was on the force for seventeen years with three of those years being on patrol. I did two years with vice and twelve with homicide. I actually started with cold cases; I was actually good at it.