ORIGINALLY POSTED: July 17, 2001
TITLE: The Ticking Clock
AUTHOR: JK Philips
RATING: R (swearing)
SUMMARY: After my resurrection of Buffy in “Death Brings Clarity.” Can Buffy and Giles live happily ever after? Or will the very nature of the Slayer tear them apart? Is it illness, a spell, or just the next level of her slayer powers? I got this idea from a challenge on the Watching You, Watching Me website. I won’t tell you which challenge, because that would give it away. :)
SPOILERS: Everything up to “The Gift”
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.
SECOND DISCLAIMER: Again, sorry about the touch of songfic. You should remember the song from the last part: “I Love You” by Sarah McLachlan.
THIRD DISCLAIMER: If you’re pregnant, you might not want to read this part just yet. You might want to visit hypnobirthing.com and see what a nice, comfortable, easy birth can be like. It works beautifully, trust me. I’ve gotten to see a lot of completely painless births using hypnobirthing, and it’s awesome!
EMAIL: . Would love feedback. This is only my second fanfic. :)
MY WEBSITE: www.jkphilips.com
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Part 6: And the Cradle Will Fall

Giles could see the emergency lights at a distance. Traffic was backed up for miles, and the slow pace was shredding his already frayed nerves. He closed his eyes, pressed his head back against the headrest, and took slow deep breaths. His heart hammered in his chest, so loud he could hear it pounding in his ears. He placed his hand over his heart, as if that could quiet the thrumming, as if that could ease the ache in his chest or stop the twisting of his stomach. Every few minutes Xander would look over from the driver’s seat and ask him if he was alright. Giles would only nod. He had lost the ability to speak some miles back, now unable to force sound past the lump that had settled in the back of his throat.

“Screw this,” Xander said finally and pulled onto the shoulder of the road, zipping ahead of the other cars. The other rush hour commuters, already irritated by the delay, gave them dirty looks and honked their horns and flipped them off and rolled down their windows to shout obscenities that wind and distance stole away before Xander and Giles ever heard them.

They made it a couple miles before an irate businessman in an SUV pulled onto the shoulder in front of them to block their way. By this point they could see the bridge just ahead, where the road now narrowed to one lane. Giles could just make out the tiny figure of a police officer directing traffic, allowing some cars to pass and then stopping others so traffic could cross the bridge from the other direction.

Xander jumped out of the car, as did the man in the SUV. They started shouting at each other, and Giles could only catch a few words here and there. Not because they weren’t loud enough to carry to him, but because it took more than he had in him to focus on the words.

A squad car pulled up on the shoulder behind them, its lights flashing, its siren wailing for a moment before the car turned off. After a calmer conversation between Xander, the businessman, and the cop, the SUV pulled back into its own lane, the squad car passed them on the shoulder, and they had a police escort the rest of the distance to the bridge.

There were several police cars there already. An ambulance, on the off chance they would find someone who could still be saved. From the way the paramedics lounged about next to their rig, drinking coffee and chatting, it was apparent that they didn’t feel they would be needed. A few other rescue vehicles were parked along the closed lane, but Giles didn’t recognize what they were for. Some kind of special operations.

He climbed out of the car and slowly approached the scene, Xander following closely behind. The officer who had escorted them walked up and began talking with them. Xander answered all the man’s questions. Giles paid no attention to them. His eyes had found her Jeep.

Boat docks lined the riverbank on either side of the bridge. It was a popular launch. In fact, he and Buffy had patrolled through here on many different occasions. Crystal River fed right into the Pacific and was a convenient place to dock one’s boat to take advantage of both ocean and river boating.

On the bank nearest the bridge, an oversized tow truck had backed right up to the water’s edge. Cranked up on its wench, Buffy’s Jeep was held aloft at a strange angle. The police officer had been kind on the phone when he had told Giles only that there was blood in the car. Her Jeep was mangled. He saw the scuba divers at the ends of the nearest docks, going in and coming out, searching for his slayer.

Xander tugged on his arm, leading him away from the sight of her Jeep and taking him up to the bridge, where their escort was bringing them to the officer in charge.

“Mr. Giles?” An older, uniformed man with graying hair and a salt and pepper beard was holding out his hand for the watcher.

Giles couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sight behind the man. Black skid marks traced a path several meters long, turning from the right lane and veering across the narrow shoulder and over the edge. The guardrail had broken at the point of impact, twisting and curling out past the bridge and over the water.

“Mr. Giles?”

He snapped his attention back to the cop standing in front of him. He forced himself to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m Lieutenant Brady. I spoke to you on the phone. I’m the one running this show. Is there anything I can get for you? Coffee maybe?”

Giles shook his head, and Brady pulled out a small notepad before continuing. “This is all we know so far. A couple witnesses report seeing a woman in a black Jeep slam on the brakes, lose control of her vehicle, and drive through the guardrails and over the edge. We have five separate 911 calls from cell phones, all around 3:15 pm. The rescue team was able to locate the vehicle and retrieve it from the river at nearly 3:55. It didn’t appear that the doors or windows had been opened, but there was blood in the passenger compartment, and the windshield had been completely blown out.”

Giles tried to imagine how Buffy might have escaped. Perhaps she had been able to unfasten her seatbelt and bail out as the Jeep plunged over the side and into the river. Perhaps she had gone down with the Jeep, but smashed out the windshield herself and climbed out to safety. Eventually he had to admit to himself that at over 34 weeks with twins, she wouldn’t have been able to do either of those things. She had barely been able to get off the couch by herself.

Brady was still talking. “We pulled up the car’s registration and cross-referenced it with the owner’s license. The witnesses were able to corroborate that the woman driving matched the DMV photo for Buffy Summers. We had a home number, but it took a bit of time to track down your place of employment. I’m sorry we couldn’t reach you earlier. And I’m sorry we don’t have better news for you. Right now the likeliest possibility is that she was thrown through the windshield at impact and is somewhere in the river as well. We’ve been dragging the bottom, and the divers are searching also, but it’s been nearly two and a half hours. We aren’t going to find her alive. With the current, we might not find her at all. I’m so sorry.”

Giles looked past the officer to the guardrail again. He was trying not to imagine what it must have been like for her, trying not to picture her as she went through the windshield and tumbled into the water, the Jeep following behind. Why wouldn’t she have been wearing her seatbelt? Except that lately it had been bothering her to have it across her stomach. Giles had always shamed her into wearing it, despite the discomfort. Why couldn’t she have worn it today?

Giles brought his eyes back to the man in front of him. He found his voice again, but still it was very quiet. “She’s full term with twins.”

Brady looked down. “Again, my deepest sympathies.” He held out a small card. “This is my number at the precinct. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want. We’ll call if there’s any further information.”

Giles took it numbly. “Thank you.” But he didn’t leave. He stayed for as long as the rescue workers did. He sat on the edge of the bridge, his legs dangling over the edge, Xander sitting quietly beside him, and watched the divers and the workers as they searched for his slayer, as they tried to at least give him the body of his wife and the children she carried.

Giles and Xander were both numb. It was like when they all sat in the library after they thought Willow had been made a vampire. It was like those first hours after finding Buffy at the bottom of the scaffolding. It was too overwhelming, too sudden to believe. It couldn’t be real. Just a few short hours ago she had been warm and alive and in his arms, and he had sent her to her death.

He’d always known it would happen one day, but he had thought he would be sending her to fight a demon or stop an apocalypse. He never imagined that he could lose his slayer to a common car accident. Not the Slayer who had killed Lothos, the Master, an ascendant demon, who had even fought a god, who had died twice and come back. Third time’s the charm.

They had all made fun of her rotten driving ability. He shouldn’t have laughed it off with the others. He should have spent time improving her skills. He shouldn’t have let her go pick up Dawn. What was he thinking? She was in no condition to be driving around by herself. She had probably gone into labor. That’s probably why she lost control.

The rescue team continued until after dark, with high-powered lights and handheld flashlights. It wasn’t long after dark before they brought him something they’d found of hers. The bracelet he had given her for Christmas. She had been wearing it when she left, and now one of the links was snapped. That was when Xander began crying. Giles only thanked the officer who had brought it and slipped it in his pocket.

They didn’t work very long into the evening. They probably only worked as long as they did because Giles was sitting on the bridge watching them. By quarter to nine it had been exactly five and a half hours since the Jeep went into the water. Like Lieutenant Brady had told him, after this much time they had no chance to find her alive and with the undercurrents strong as they were, her body could likely be in the Pacific by now.

The emergency crews packed up their gear and left in their rigs. Lieutenant Brady offered his condolences again before leaving as well. Soon it was just Xander and Giles sitting on the bridge and looking over the water. This was more than likely the only grave they would ever have for Buffy.

***

Willow stopped before knocking on the front door. It had been more than a day since it had happened, and she had cried until she didn’t think she could cry anymore, until her tears had run out and she had only the red marks under her eyes and down her cheeks to show her grief. But now, standing in front of the door, she was afraid that she would start all over again. And she couldn’t. Not right now.

Willow turned panicked eyes towards her lover, whose own eyes were red as hers. “Tara, I can’t do this.”

Tara framed Willow’s face with her hands and kissed her tenderly on the lips. “Strong like an Amazon, remember?”

Willow closed her eyes and nodded, taking a deep breath. “Right. Strong like an Amazon. Okay, I can do this. Dawn needs me. Giles needs me. I can do this.” She felt Tara’s hand join with hers, and she knew she could do this. She had Tara, and together they could do anything.

Willow knocked.

Dawn answered the door. She had been crying, was still crying, and immediately came into Willow’s arms for a hug. Willow heard the music drifting out to them, a slow sad melody, the same melody she had heard in the background when Dawn had called them.

Dawn gave Tara a hug too, and the three of them stood on the porch for a moment without going inside.

“How is he?” Willow asked.

Dawn shrugged. “Dunno. He hasn’t said two words. He just sits and listens to that stupid song over and over again and drinks. He drinks a lot. I think he’s drunk. He hasn’t eaten anything. He fell asleep in the babies’ room in the rocking chair last night.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and crossed her arms angrily. “I just can’t stand that stupid song anymore, and he won’t let me turn it off.”

“What is it?” Tara asked.

Dawn sniffed and looked down. “Something by Sarah somebody. I dunno. It was what they danced to after they got married.”

Willow nodded in understanding. Wow, could that have been only Saturday? And now here it was Thursday, not even a week later, and he was mourning her and their babies that he had never even gotten to see. “Dawn, do you want to go for a walk with Tara?”

“Sure.”

Tara looked at her, concerned. “Willow, you sure you don’t want me… I mean, when you… We could just wait out here if you wanted.”

Willow shook her head, and gave the blonde witch a small smile. “I’ll be fine. Strong like an Amazon. You two go to the park or get ice cream or something.”

When she said ice cream, Dawn started sobbing, and Tara pulled the girl into her arms and started walking her down the porch steps, giving Willow one last look over her shoulder before they left.

Willow stepped through the front door, shutting it behind her. The song echoed through the whole house, the melody full of longing and regret, a slow sensual rhythm that Willow could imagine Watcher and Slayer dancing to.

She found him sitting on the couch, a glass and a bottle of Scotch on the table in front of him, both half empty. He was wearing one of his Oxford shirts over dress slacks. It looked like what he’d probably been wearing at the Magic Box the day before. It looked like he’d slept in them. Jacket and tie missing, cuffs rolled up, first three buttons of the collar undone. His pocketwatch lay open on the table beside his drink. She saw his fingers touch the engraving before his shaking hand took the glass and drained it in one swallow.

I grieve in my condition for I cannot find the words to say I need you so.

“Giles?” She approached him until she was standing directly in front of him. He didn’t seem to notice her. He still clutched the glass in one hand. The other reached unsteadily for the bottle. She grabbed it first. “You’ve had enough.”

Oh and every time I’m close to you, there’s too much I can’t say, and you just walk away.

His head came up slowly to look at her. She had never seen his eyes look so empty. Not even after Buffy died the last time. Willow doubted if even Dawn would be enough to keep him going this time. His trembling hand reached for the bottle, but she held it further beyond his grasp. “No. This isn’t helping, Giles. This isn’t what Buffy would have wanted.”

And I forgot to tell you I love you. And the night’s too long and cold here without you.

His hand dropped. His head bowed. “Just leave me alone, Willow.”

I grieve in my condition for I cannot find the words to say I need you so.

The music faded into silence. And then the song clicked over and started again. Willow could understand why it had been driving Dawn nuts. It was like a constant funeral dirge. She could only imagine what it was doing to Giles, to remember dancing with his new wife, to remember when the song was romantic and filled with promises.

I have a smile, stretched from ear to ear, to see you walking down the road.

“I’m not going to leave you alone, Giles, so you can just stop fighting me right now and save us both a lot of hassle. Come on. We’re going to sober you up. And then you’re going to eat something.” She set the bottle beside the wall and reached for his hand.

We meet at the lights. I stare for a while. The world around us disappears.

“I am sober,” he murmured. “I can’t seem to get drunk. I keep drinking, but I can’t seem to get drunk. I think that might be nice. It’s got to be bloody better than this.”

It’s just you and me on my island of hope. A breath between us could be miles.

Willow pulled him to his feet, and he didn’t resist her, but he did sway and cling to her for balance. “Maybe you should rethink that whole sober thing. You seem pretty drunk to me. Come on. How does coffee sound?”

Let me surround you, my sea to your shore. Let me be the calm you seek.

“Terrible,” he answered. He staggered as they walked towards the kitchen, and Willow looped one of his arms over her shoulder to support him. As they passed the dining room table, she noticed the various empty liquor bottles sitting next to the ones that hadn’t even been opened yet. There were more empty bottles than full. Giles had drunk a lot. Maybe she should take him to a doctor or something.

Oh and every time I’m close to you, there’s too much I can’t say, and you just walk away.

She could hear the music even out in the kitchen. It was an undercurrent that flowed beneath everything. It set the mood for the house. She wanted to turn it off, but first she would have to get Giles situated. She deposited him on a stool next to the island counter, started a pot of coffee, and opened the fridge to see what she could feed him.

And I forgot to tell you I love you. And the night’s too long and cold here without you.

She put a couple frozen dinners in the microwave. He probably wouldn’t like them, but it would get something in his stomach. She gave him a glass of water in the meantime, glaring at him until he drank it.

I grieve in my condition for I cannot find the words to say I need you so.

“Willow,” he spoke very quietly, leaning against the counter, his head tipping very low as if he soon wouldn’t be able to hold it up anymore. “Do you think they would have had her eyes?”

Oh and every time I’m close to you, there’s too much I can’t say, and you just walk away.

Willow bit her lip not to cry. She couldn’t start now. She wouldn’t be able to stop. Strong like an Amazon. She could do this. She could be the one he leaned on for once. He had always been the one they leaned on. “I think they would have had her eyes and her blonde hair. But Buffy used to tell me that she hoped at least one would have your green eyes. She always liked your green eyes.”

And I forgot to tell you I love you. And the night’s too long and cold here without you.

Giles began to cry. Willow had never seen him cry. Buffy had, after Jenny died, but he had never done so in front of any of the others. Not after Jenny. Not after Buffy died the last time. Not once. Willow wasn’t sure that he would want her to see this, not sure that he wouldn’t be embarrassed to break down in front of her. But she couldn’t just leave him like that. So she cautiously wrapped her arms around him. When he returned her embrace, she pulled him in tighter, feeling him shake against her as he sobbed.

I grieve in my condition for I cannot find the words to say I need you so.

The music faded again, and the song clicked over, starting once again at the beginning. The microwave beeped. The coffee had finished brewing. She would have to eventually turn off that damn song, pour him some coffee, and make him eat something. All that could wait, though. For right now, she had to hold Giles while he cried.

***

Buffy measured out the space of her prison: 10 feet by 10 feet. Her dorm room had been bigger. A nice big double bed took up most of the room. A small dresser. She opened it: three drawers of clothes and a couple spare sets of sheets. Maternity shirts, pants, even underthings. Ethan had also been thoughtful enough to provide her with nursing bras.

He certainly seems intent on keeping me here until the babies come. And then after. She didn’t even want to think about how long she would have after before Ethan took her children to the people who had hired him. Giles will find us. It became her mantra over the next few days. Giles will find us.

She sat on the bed. Comfortable at least. She would need that or her back would be killing her in no time. Next to the bed, a simple nightstand with a digital clock. It had a large red display. Hours. Minutes. Even seconds measured out in the neon red lights. So she could keep track of every moment of her imprisonment.

She slid out the one drawer of the nightstand. A couple Harlequin novels. Because what Ethan wanted of course, she thought sarcastically, was a horny pregnant slayer.

Beneath the trashy novels, a blank baby book with a pen. Places for babies’ footprints, handprints. And pages and pages of blank space for her to journal. Ethan wants me to be able to take home my memories. She wasn’t sure if it was meant as a kindness or a further way to torment her with what he would take from her.

She slid the drawer back in and looked up at the video camera above the door. There was one on each side of the bedroom, and two in the bathroom as well, so there wasn’t one inch of space in her prison that they couldn’t watch her.

She rose from the bed and crossed again to the dresser. On top sat a half-fridge, like she’d had in the dorms. Inside, it was well stocked with things they had thought she might want to eat. On the dresser beside it, they had stacked some dishes and silverware.

She tried the door for the hundredth time. It was solid metal, had no handle, and latched with a sophisticated locking mechanism like the doors at the Initiative. Except that she wasn’t at the Initiative. She really had no idea where they had taken her. But she knew she wouldn’t be getting out the door on her own power, even after her slayer skills returned.

She walked into the bathroom. There was no door separating the two rooms that she could see. The cabinet below the sink was stocked with all the white fluffy towels and washcloths that could fit. Like a hotel, except that she couldn’t check out.

At that moment, the door revealed itself. It slid out from inside the wall and sealed off the doorway, trapping her inside the bathroom. She pounded on the metal surface and tried to slide it open, but it was as secure as the outside door to her prison. After about fifteen minutes, the door suddenly opened again, and she was allowed back into the bedroom. A tray of hot food was now resting on the bed, along with a note, which read, Any requests? -Ethan.

“Yeah,” Buffy said, crumpling up the note and looking up into one of the cameras. “How about letting me the hell out of here before I have to hunt you down and beat the living shit out of you?”

But there was no response, and she was hungry, and the babies were going to make her eat, and so she ate. She thought back to the chain of events that had brought her here and tried to work out if there was anything she could have done differently. No, there wasn’t. There hadn’t been time. They had been expecting her. She hadn’t even made it into the Jeep. The car had pulled up behind her so quickly, she hadn’t time to turn around before a man she didn’t know had grabbed her from behind and pressed something up to her mouth and nose. She had recognized Ethan Rayne immediately when he stepped in front of her. He had given her an apologetic smile and told her he was sorry as he took the keys from her hand. She had struggled against the stranger’s grip behind her, struggled to breathe through the thick chemical smell. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Ethan climbing into the driver’s seat of her Jeep. The whole abduction had taken less than 30 seconds.

She had come to on this bed in this room, Ethan sitting on a chair across the room, watching her. He had been quite talkative. He seemed to want her to forgive his involvement in all of this. He was merely following orders from his mysterious Boss and his accomplice. They had freed him from Nevada, from the place she had sent him, he quickly reminded her. As if this made them even. And then the part that had made her blood run cold. He had told her that they planned to take her twins after birth, but unless she gave them a lot of grief, Ethan could probably convince his cohorts to let her go afterwards.

She had told him to go to hell, and he had left. She had rushed to the door as it opened, but the weight of the twins made it feel like running through quicksand, and she was far too slow. She hadn’t seen Ethan since then. And now it appeared that they intended to lock her in the bathroom anytime they wished to enter her room. In her condition, she could only hold it for so long, so they would have lots of opportunities.

She finished her meal and set the empty tray on the dresser. She curled up on the bed, running her hands lovingly across her belly. The twins were sleeping at the moment, and she was trying to formulate some kind of plan in her head. She was drawing a blank. It seemed her only hope was to have Giles rescue her. She started to cry, hating herself for doing so, for giving Ethan and whoever else was watching her on the monitors the satisfaction of witnessing her tears.

Today was Wednesday. Probably Wednesday. She couldn’t have been unconscious that long. The big neon clock on the nightstand read 8:45 pm. It matched the time on her watch. They had no reason to mess with her sense of time, so the clock was probably correct. That was when she noticed the bracelet on her other hand was gone, the one Giles had given her. She began crying again. If she couldn’t have him here with her, then she wanted something of him to keep her grounded and hopeful. There was nothing else. They hadn’t time to buy wedding rings yet, and she had wanted to wait until the swelling in her hands went away. No point in having it resized after the twins came.

One of the babies moved. Still too cramped for the gymnastics and hard kicking they had done a couple weeks ago, she could feel the movement more like the early stirrings she had felt at the beginning. She smiled and patted over the baby tenderly. She had his son and his daughter inside her, and that would have to be enough. She poked over the hard mass of her stomach, feeling for elbows and feet and butts. She felt a small answering kick to one of her pokes, and she played with the baby until the other woke as well, and they were both moving inside her.

Thursday came and went, and Friday as well. Buffy was bored. She paced. She actually picked up the Harlequin books and read them. She napped. She tried to ease the constant ache in her lower back, but she couldn’t reach, and Giles wasn’t here to massage her. The bathroom door locked behind her a few times each day, so they could bring her each meal. She snacked on Jell-O from the fridge, and finally lowered herself to actually asking Ethan for mint chocolate chip ice cream, which was dutifully delivered with the next meal.

She got used to the video cameras and the lack of privacy. She would give them the finger while sitting on the toilet. Sometimes, though, she almost wished that Ethan would come into her room again, although she would never actually ask for it. The silence and the loneliness were the worst. She took to talking to her babies, calling them Rabbit 1 and Rabbit 2. She wished she and Giles had thought of names sooner.

By bedtime Friday night, she was feeling as big as a house. Her feet had disappeared from view long before Xander and Anya’s wedding. Now she almost imagined that she wouldn’t be able to fit through the bathroom door if she went sideways. And it usually took her a minute or more to work herself off the bed or get back on it. But as ready as she was for this to be over, she was terrified of going into labor here by herself with no doctor, no Giles. He would have to find her before that happened. But it was Friday already, and the clock was seriously ticking. Saturday made her 36 weeks, which Dr. Michaels had told her was the average delivery time for twins. Wednesday would put her over 38 weeks, and depending on size, the doctor had discussed inducing her if she went much past that.

So Friday night, before bed, Buffy stepped into the shower, hoping to relax herself with a long hot soak. There were handrails against each wall, and she leaned on them as she let the water run over first her stomach and then her back. She wished again for Giles’ hands to rub away all her aches. One of the babies had shifted so his head was in just the wrong place and pressing against her back. She turned the nozzle to massage and let the stream pound against her lower back. It helped only a little.

Finally she had pruned up enough and relaxed to the point she thought she could sleep. She turned off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack. When she had completely dried off, she felt a sudden gush, and the insides of her legs were wet again. She looked down. Her water had broken.

Don’t panic, Buffy, she told herself. It was hard not to. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do. Giles had been the one to read all those books and study up on all of this. He had tried to interest her in it, and now she was wishing she had listened to him. She dried herself off again and stepped out of the shower. She pulled on a nightgown and looked up at the cameras.

“Please, Ethan, you have to send me a doctor. Dr. Michaels would come. He’s a Council man. There wouldn’t even be questions. I need a doctor. Michaels told us one of the babies is breech. She’s going to need extra help. Please.”

Buffy waited in the bathroom for a half an hour, but the door wouldn’t lock her out. She paced along the tile, splashed water on her face from the sink, and tried to slow her panic.

It’s going to be fine, Buffy. The doctor only said that she *might* need help. The babies will both be fine. You’ll be fine. You can do this.

She looked up into the mirror, and her reflection seemed to say, Liar.

Finally she was tired and went to bed. She tossed and turned for an hour or so before she could still her mind enough to sleep. 11:30pm was the last thing she remembered the clock saying. She woke at 3:30am when she felt her stomach tighten, like it had at her father’s wedding, only this time much stronger. She pressed her hand against her belly and shifted her weight on the bed. Long, slow, deep breaths and eventually the sensation passed. Her first real contraction. That wasn’t so bad. She didn’t know what she had been so afraid of. She closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.

Ten or fifteen minutes later and another one woke her. By nearly seven they were a steady eight to ten minutes apart, and she couldn’t sleep between them anymore. Her water continued to leak with each one, so by now she was sleeping in a wet bed anyway. She got up and changed the sheets, laying a layer of towels over the top. She changed into a fresh nightgown and started to pace back and forth across her prison, leaning over the dresser or against the bedpost during each contraction. They were getting stronger, and by nine they were starting to hurt.

She tried different positions, but it didn’t seem to matter. She sat on the foot of the bed with her legs dangling over the edge and took long slow breaths, curling her fingers into the sheets and towels as the tightness slowly changed to pressure and pain. She tried the next one on the bed, kneeling on all fours. But that didn’t seem to be much better. The wave rose inside her, and she rocked back into her hips, her forehead pressing against the bed beneath her. She tried on her side for the one after that, but she only ended up curled into a little ball, staring at the clock, willing the seconds to move along faster.

By noon, they came a constant five minutes apart and lasted 45 seconds to a minute. She knew the length of each surge almost to the second, because her eyes never left the clock during each one. Sometimes she wondered if the clock was broken, because the seconds seemed to slow down during the contractions. It seemed to get stuck completely at each peak, leaving her gasping there for long moments before the seconds started moving again and she could come down.

Sometimes she had them while in the bathroom, and they were always more intense. She would sit on the toilet with her hands pressing against the sink and the wall, her head shaking back and forth as she held her breath and waited for the peak so she could come down. Sometimes the intensity forced a deep guttural moan from the back of her throat. Sometimes the pain made her legs shake uncontrollably.

She tried to stay in bed as much as possible. They were just too intense when she was walking or when she was sitting. She couldn’t remember how she was supposed to breathe. There was some magic pattern that was supposed to make all of this go away. If she could remember the special breathing patterns, then it wouldn’t hurt anymore. She was wishing she had paid attention in Lamaze. She was wishing she had listened to Giles when he had tried to help her practice this stuff. They were getting closer and stronger, and she didn’t know how much stronger they could get before they wouldn’t just snap her in two.

She hadn’t wanted to have the babies here alone. She had wanted to stall until Giles could come. But now she just wanted it over. Over, over, *over*. Sometimes instead of breathing, she would groan and tell the babies to come down, down, down already. But they were disobedient little things. Must take after their mother. Buffy’s own mother had warned her that one-day her children would give her the same grief that Buffy had given Joyce and then she would appreciate just what her mother had to put up with. If Joyce had gone through this agony with Buffy, how had Dawn ever come along? Buffy would definitely not be doing this again, even if she had the choice.

By four, the waves were lasting a good minute each time and coming pretty much two or three minutes apart. Buffy had lost track of the exact time on the clock. She saw only the digits for the minutes and the seconds. Now she was sure there was something wrong with the clock, because each second couldn’t possibly be dragging on for this long. She had passed the point of trying to control them, of trying to be brave or strong or trying to breathe through them or change her position or of caring whether Ethan or anyone else saw her fall apart. She had reached the point where she simply writhed on the bed with each one and screamed until her throat was raw, screamed as if she could send the pain out of her body with her voice, as if the screaming would make Ethan do something, would make him send a doctor or do something. And sometimes between them, she would curl up and cry and actually beg Ethan for a doctor. She was surely dying, and he didn’t seem to understand that.

***

Ethan Rayne stood outside the door to the magic shop. He peered in the store window, seeking out one Rupert Giles behind the register. Nearly six on a Saturday, and they were about to close. Ripper seemed to be more collected today. Maybe working helped take his mind off Buffy’s apparent death. But Ethan knew the cool exterior was only a front. He had been watching the footage from the surveillance cameras. He had seen the total breakdown. Mr. Longsworth had recorded it onto VHS and sometimes rewatched it for hours. His old friend was hanging on by a thread.

Ethan wasn’t sure what he was doing here, except that Buffy was in bad shape. Neither Mr. Longsworth nor Sulla seemed to care one way or the other whether she lived or died. Longsworth wanted the boy, would probably let her keep the girl, but he would not be terribly disappointed if something happened during the delivery.

Watching Buffy on the monitors made Ethan’s skin crawl. It seemed beyond cruel to just leave her like that for who knew how long. When she started screaming, he had to turn down the volume or be driven mad by it. The worst was when she screamed his name. No, he was wrong. The worst was when she begged him, when the proudest of slayers actually begged him for help.

The others had only laughed when he suggested that they might want to bring in some help for her. He had tried to reason with Mr. Longsworth that if they brought in Dr. Michaels, she had a greater chance of delivering her son safely into the world, and Longsworth would have his prize. They refused to even entertain the idea of bringing in a doctor.

But in the end, he had convinced them to let him bring in Ripper. Not because Longsworth cared that it would help Buffy. Only because it would cause Giles more grief to attend her and not be able to do anything for her. And because if anything happened during the delivery, he would be devastated, would be forced to watch, and would blame himself afterwards for not doing enough. Ethan could only hope the man had researched this whole pregnancy and birth thing with the same dedication he put into studying demons and prophecies. Ethan could only hope the man would be prepared to deliver his own children.

He took a breath and opened the door just as the blonde store clerk was coming to lock it. He didn’t recognize her, and she didn’t recognize him, but she frowned at him.

“We’re closing,” she informed him firmly. “Unless you plan to spend a lot of money, you will have to come back on Monday.”

Ethan looked past her to where Ripper was standing at the register, intently focused on a book, his pen poised over its pages. The sorcerer walked around the young blonde, and she yelled, “Hey!”

Ethan ignored her. “I’ve come to see an old friend.”

Ripper looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. The rage in that face might have cowed him in days past, but he knew Ripper wouldn’t touch him. Ethan had something the man wanted. He was holding his wife and children.

“Ethan Rayne,” Ripper growled. “You always seem to know just when to show up, just when I feel the need to give someone a good thrashing. How considerate of you.”

Ethan smiled. “Can we skip over the hostile banter and cut right to the chase? Your time is running out, mate, and I’m here to do you a favor.”

Ripper laughed darkly. “Right. If I remember correctly, the last time you tried to do me a favor, I woke up as a Fyarl demon.”

Ethan put up his hands to indicate surrender and backed up into the nearest bookshelf as his old friend advanced on him. “I did my time for that, as the saying goes. Two years in an Initiative detainment facility as they poked and prodded me, trying to figure out where my magic came from. I’d say that’s more than enough penance for a harmless prank.”

“Harmless prank?” Ripper was on him, shoving him back against the shelves with one hand. “You almost got me killed by my own slayer.”

Ethan shrugged and tried to smile charmingly. “Funny you should mention her. That’s actually what I came to talk to you about.”

Ripper released him and turned towards the blonde woman watching near the entrance. “Anya, clear out of here.” She didn’t need to be told twice and was gone. He turned back to Ethan, grabbing the sorcerer by the throat. “You have two minutes. And then I start breaking things.”

Ethan gestured to his throat and was released. He coughed for a moment and then began telling his tale, still massaging his sore throat. “Two minute version is that Buffy’s still alive.”

Ripper staggered back. “What?”

“Now keep in mind, old friend, that I only have the teeniest little part in this. Well, okay that’s a lie. But none of this was my idea. Someone’s paying me. Same someone who got me out of Nevada. Considering who else he’s been willing to hire… Well, if I didn’t cooperate, he would have likely sent me back to Nevada for good. In an unmarked grave in the desert with the vultures picking my bones.”

Ripper’s jaw did that twitching clenching thing. Ethan knew his two minutes were nearly up. “It would have been a generous end for you.”

Ethan shrugged. “Should hear what they had planned for you.” He grimaced. “Even I had a hard time with that one. Didn’t want to watch, that’s for sure. Lucky for you, plan’s changed.”

Ripper took a threatening step forward. “Get back to Buffy. Now.”

Ethan held up his hands in defense. His two minutes were definitely up. “Okay, okay, I was just getting to that. See, my boss made her the new plan. When he found out you had put a couple brats in her- good show on that, by the way. I’ve always found your slayer to be quite the eyeful.” Off his adversary’s glare, he continued quickly. “Right, right. Anyway, my boss fancied the notion of taking your kids for whatever reason. So we nabbed her and staged the accident. Little illusion spell, so the witnesses would see her driving. Little control spell, so I could drive the car without actually being in it. Blood spilled across the seats, her bracelet thrown in the water for the divers to find, and a few small explosives to blow the window out as the Jeep hit the rail and went over. We did a pretty thorough job. Had you fooled.”

Ripper shoved him against the shelves again with a hand on the chest. “Where. Is. She?”

Perhaps Ethan shouldn’t have been so proud at his success. “Easy, mate, I was planning on telling you. In fact, I came to take you to her. She’s in labor and not doing very well. I thought maybe you could help her.”

Ripper released him and took a few steps back, running one hand through his hair. “Is there a doctor with her?”

“Believe me, if I could have, I would have brought back a doctor over you. That’s probably what she needs. But these men that are working with me… They wouldn’t have it, and I wasn’t about to argue with them. So I have to settle for you. This is some sick game with them, and letting you in with her plays right into their twisted little scheme.”

Ethan could see the wheels spinning in his old friend’s head. “How many did you say there were? Maybe together we can-”

“No, no, no. No good, my friend.” Ethan was shaking his head. “There’s only the hitman, the Boss, and a couple other hired thugs he brought in to help him get out of town with the babies. But the place is a fortress, and they all have guns. You try and go in there and play the hero…. You’ll only get your slayer killed.”

“If I go with you, you’ll take me to her?”

“That was the plan. I come back with just you, and they’ll let you in to be with her.”

Ripper was pacing. Ethan recognized the way the man mentally worked through his problems. The glasses came off, polished briskly while he thought. That was a new habit. “You could take Dr. Michaels in, tell them he’s me.”

“No good. They know you.”

Ripper sighed, resigned. He looked more like the librarian now than the rebel he had been in their youth. “Fine. But I need to make a phone call first. And you’ll let me bring some things? The doctor gave me a kit, in case of emergency. There were special circumstances. We weren’t sure how much time we would have to get to the hospital.”

Ethan nodded. “Phone call, no. Supplies, by all means. As for time, you needn’t have worried. It’s been over fourteen hours. You would have had plenty of time.”

Ripper paled at that and hurried to get his things. He paused at the phone, but Ethan shook his finger. “Let me just clue you in to the fact that we bugged your house and shop with cameras. They’re watching us right now. The only mics we have are in Buffy’s room, but the cameras will still give them a pretty good shot of you calling out. They’ll assume it’s to the cops. They’ll likely cut their losses, shoot your slayer, and skip out of town.”

Ripper acquiesced and walked out of the shop, carrying a small bag slung over his shoulder. He probably suspected a trap, but for Buffy’s sake he would take the chance. They both climbed into Sulla’s black Accord. Ethan put the keys in the ignition, but he didn’t start it. He turned sideways in his seat to face his old friend. “First things first, Ripper old chum, they’ll search that bag soon as we get there. They find anything they don’t like, they won’t let you take it in at all.”

With a sigh, Ripper emptied the bag of a gun, a switchblade, a magic charm that could be used to create blindness, and a cell phone. Now, nothing but the medical supplies the doctor had given him. Ethan imagined that the man had to at least try. “Alright. Second thing. You’ve got to wear these.” He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and a blindfold.

“What is it with handcuffs lately?” the man grumbled, but obediently held his hands out.

“No, behind your back.” When Ripper balked, Ethan reminded him, “They won’t let us through the gate if I don’t have you properly restrained. Without the blindfold, they’ll just shoot you on sight. No good having the enemy know the location of your hideout.”

Ripper turned and allowed the handcuffs to bind his hands behind him. “Will you at least call the house for me? There’s a girl there, Dawn-”

“The Slayer’s brat sister? Yeah, I remember her.”

An irritated sigh. “Tell her I’m fine. Tell her you’re a supplier or something, and I got a new shipment in and won’t be home for a while. I’d rather not worry her. Oh, and tell her to ask Willow to wait ’til tomorrow before we work on that teleportation spell like we had planned for tonight.”

Ethan clucked his tongue as he took the glasses off and neatly folded them into the watcher’s lap. “Coded messages, Ripper? How stupid do you think I am? Wait, don’t answer that. But I will call the house for you, tell the girl you’re out on the town with an old friend, needing a bit of cheering up after your horrible loss, be gone maybe a couple days. Wouldn’t want to worry anyone.”

And then he tied the blindfold on, making sure his old friend would be able to see nothing. The rest of the trip passed in silence. Ripper was probably trying to work out their destination by the turns of the car and the sound of the road and the time elapsed. Ethan knew those tricks. He took various detours along the way.

***

Buffy doubled over, curled herself around the tightness that built up around the top of her stomach and ground down into her pelvis. She pulled her legs up and then stretched them back out. She clenched her fists into the towels and the bedsheets beneath, turning to first one side and then the other. There was nothing she could do, no position that would ease this terrible pressure, pressure, pressure, constantly getting stronger, stronger, stronger every moment. She watched the clock, hoping for distraction, for focus, but it was stuck again, stuck on this moment, stuck on this pain, and it wouldn’t ever move forward again. She had stopped screaming some time before, maybe hours? Time had no measure anymore. The yelling hadn’t helped anyway, had only made her throat sore, and now the contractions were just too strong. She didn’t have the breath to scream.

The surge was still building, still rising inside her, and every second she kept thinking that this had to be the peak, because it couldn’t possibly get more intense. But it did. She shut her eyes and held her breath against it.

She felt a soft touch on her shoulder. She thought it was him. She hoped it was him. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t focus on anything but the intensity of the pain. She clutched the hand that was offered her and shook her head back and forth, biting her lip. A soft whimper escaped her lips at the peak, and then she was coming down, her body shaking as the contraction slowly released its grip.

She collapsed back into waiting arms, breathing hard and licking her lips. She opened her eyes, and it was him. She smiled, and her chin trembled. “Giles?” Her voice was raspy and raw from the hours where she had thought screaming would help. “How did you...? Am I dreaming?”

He smoothed back the strands of hair that clung to her damp face. “No, luv, I’m here. Ethan brought me to help you.”

She closed her eyes again and relaxed into the arms that cradled her. “You didn’t happen to bring a doctor and a whole lot of Demerol with you, did you?”

“Just me, I’m afraid.”

She pulled herself tighter into his embrace. Clutching the front of his shirt, she began to cry. “Why is Ethan doing this? Who hired him, and what do they want with our babies?”

She felt his arms squeeze her closer, his head resting on top of hers. “Shhh... Don’t think about that now. You need to rest, gather your strength. We’ll worry about Ethan and whoever else is behind this after the babies are born.”

She nodded and wiped her tears with the back of one hand. He laid her gently down against the pillows, and then climbed off the bed.

“Giles! Don’t go!” She reached for him desperately.

He took her outstretched hands in his own. “I’m not going anywhere, Buffy. I’m just going to get you something to drink. Maybe some ice. Would you like that?”

She nodded weakly and released him. He had only gotten halfway to the small fridge before she sat up again and called him back. “Giles, another one!”

Her stomach was tightening again. She rubbed her hand over it, along the bottom curve of its surface, where the pressure and the pain were building up the strongest. She began shifting her legs again, pulling them up and straightening them out in a constant rhythm as the intensity built inside her, as it stole her breath away.

Giles was lightly stroking her back and arm, but it was distracting, it wasn’t helping, he wasn’t helping. She pushed his hands away roughly. That wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed... She didn’t know what she needed, except that she needed this to stop. It was still rising and taking her with it, as she pushed herself inches above the bed, as she rose up as if to rise up out of her body and leave this agony behind her. She twisted her legs and tilted onto first one hip and then the other, but nothing she could do would stop it, would slow it, as it continued to grind her, to crush her.

“Buffy, it will be easier if you can relax into it.”

Relax? He had to be kidding. The wave was still building, squeezing her until she felt it would turn her inside out. Every second she wondered how it could possibly get worse, and every second the pressure, the pain only intensified.

“Buffy, you’re hyperventilating. Slow down your breathing. Like this.” He demonstrated and leaned in closer. She turned her head to watch him and try to match him. She released her death grip on the bed sheets and grabbed for his shirtfront to pull him even closer. Forehead to forehead, nose to nose, she focused on his eyes and forced herself to breathe in time with him. She reached the peak and exhaled in a long groan that vibrated down through her whole chest. And then it was fading. She dropped her head to his shoulder and curled her legs in beneath her, willing the damn thing to just go already. After it had, after she had rested against him for a moment, Giles spoke softly in her ear.

“Has it gone?”

She nodded slightly, and he placed her back in the bed, leaving her side to fetch the drink he had promised her. She stretched her legs out, let her breathing slow to normal, and turned her head to watch him. He assembled a whole array of necessities on the nightstand beside her: several glasses of water and juice, glasses of ice, a bowl filled with cool water and washrags, and a stack of bath towels he placed on the floor beside the bed next to a bag he must have carried in with him. Every time he went into the bathroom for towels or washcloths, her heart hammered as she imagined the door slamming and locking behind him, Ethan laughing as he watched on the cameras, as he locked Giles away from her. She couldn’t do this anymore by herself. She wasn’t sure she could do this with Giles either.

When he seemed satisfied that he had made all the preparations he could make, he climbed on the bed beside her, lifted her head, and placed a glass of water to her lips to drink. She took a few small sips. Anymore than that, and she was sure she would be sick. He gave her an ice chip to suck on and wiped her brow with the cool rag.

She snatched his hand for the next contraction, lying on her side and rubbing her legs together like a cricket as the pressure built. He laid on his side facing her, maintaining eye contact as he talked her through it, as he helped her breathe. When it passed, she continued to hold tight to him and in a soft voice lamented, “It hurts.”

He smiled kindly and returned to mopping her brow and neck with the cool rag. “I imagine so.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean really and a lot. How much longer?”

“I don’t know.” He twisted to reach behind him and resoak the washcloth in the cool water before placing it again on her forehead. “How long has it been?”

She closed her eyes and threw one hand over her face, pressing the cool rag against her warm skin. “I lost track. I know it’s been four o’clock twice already. What time is it now?”

“Eight,” he answered as he turned back to grab an ice chip and pop it in her mouth. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer. Just take them one at a time. It won’t hurt so much if you can stay relaxed through it.”

She tried. She really did. For the next few hours, she tried to lay still and breathe when he told her to and focus on his voice and block out everything but his eyes. But the contractions were getting so much stronger and so much closer and she couldn’t help but curl herself into a little ball around them until she would beg him: no more no more nomore nomore nomorenomore and please, Giles, just make it stop and please, there must be a spell you can do, and omigod, just do something.

Between, she would close her eyes and try to rest and try not to think about how soon the next one would come or how much worse it would be. Giles would make her drink more water or feed her more ice chips or wash off her sweat with the cool rag or help her into the bathroom.

The worst was when a wave hit her as they were walking back to the bed after one such trip. She couldn’t move, could only stand there, leaning up against Giles and swaying her hips as her legs shook beneath her. He tried to help her breathe, but the breathing wasn’t helping and the rocking wasn’t helping, and the tight ball of babies was pressing, pressing, pressing down until she couldn’t stand it, and the wave was crushing her like a vise until she finally did scream on that one. And she could see how it rattled Giles to hold her as she screamed, but still she couldn’t stop until the contraction did. And then he helped her into bed, massaging along her feet and legs, reminding her how much easier it would be if she could only relax.

Sometimes when he thought she was dozing, Buffy would catch him prowling along the perimeter of their room, looking for weaknesses in the walls of their prison, checking the lock on the door, and testing to see if he could force it open. Buffy wanted to tell him that she had done the same thing the last three or four days-- how long had it been?-- and he would find their prison just as secure as she had, but the attempt seemed to make him feel useful, so she just let him try. And then when she would feel another begin, she would writhe and reach her hands up to clutch the headboard, and he would be at her side in a moment, trying to get her to relax and breathing slowly with her and holding her hand until it passed.

By one in the morning, she was exhausted. He looked tired too, and he hadn’t been at this for nearly as long as she. After one particularly difficult contraction, as she caught her breath, she asked him again, “How much longer?” When he could only answer that he didn’t know, she lamented, “What happened to my short five minute labor? Doesn’t this translate to like a week in real time?”

He smiled sadly and fed her more ice chips. “I think we were wrong to think that your labor would be reduced. Your slayer metabolism is focused only on the babies, helping to bring them to term more quickly. This part, it would seem, you will have to get through like any other woman.”

And then the next one was coming, and she clutched his shirtfront, moaning and breathing with him and shifting her legs. Bend, straighten, bend, straighten. She bit her lip, and the peak was coming and his hands were trying to massage along her arms and back, but he wasn’t doing it right, he never did it right, and she was shoving him away, saying, “Stop it, stop it, stop it.” And she was shaking uncontrollably again, and that only made the peak worse as it washed over her. She fell back against the pillows as it released her, panting and looking towards Giles, her eyes pleading with him to save her.

That was when he suggested that she might like a bath, that it might help her relax, relieve some of the pressure, maybe take the edge off, and that she might even be able to get some sleep between. He started the water, coming back when she called for him and talking her through the next one.

When the bath was full, and she had just finished with a contraction, he helped her into the bathroom. She started to step into the tub, and he asked if she wouldn’t like to undress first.

“No, if you think it will help, then I just want in now.”

But when she dipped her foot in, it was too hot, and he started the cold water running.

Then the next one started, and she was standing there, unable to move, pushing against the wall, crying, “Giles, Giles, Giles!” He caught her as she slid down to her knees. She was pounding on the wall, choking on her own breath as the pressure just got stronger and stronger and unbearably intense. She shook like a leaf. Then she reached for him, her eyes growing wide as she told him, “I’m going to be sick.”

He helped her to rise, not an easy thing while her body was still trying to fold her in half. The sink seemed closer for some reason, and she lurched for it, leaning over the basin as she threw up. The retching only made the contraction worse, as her stomach spasmed over the crushing, tightening, pressing wave. She moaned as she dry heaved, as he held her hair back from her face and tried to take some of her weight. She stopped as the wave left her, resting against the countertop and panting.

He helped her stand again and walked her to the bathtub. She put one foot in.

Now it was too cold.

***

Five am. Giles sat on the floor beside the bathtub, one hand resting against Buffy’s stomach, the other stretched across the back of the tub, supporting her head. He had been able to settle her in the bath some hours before, and it seemed to help. She was able to doze now between each one, although he was fighting not to fall asleep with her. It was harder on her if she woke in the middle of a contraction without the time to prepare. So he kept his hand against her belly and roused her from her slumber at the beginning of each one.

He was feeling tired and helpless. He had read the books. He had taken the class. He had gone in to see Dr. Michaels without Buffy, when he had worried that the babies would come too quickly. The doctor had showed him what he should do, had explained how to deliver each baby, even the girl who was breech. But Giles had never done this, and though he may have owned the photographic watcher’s memory for all that he had studied, he still didn’t know how to help her. All his planning had focused on what to do if they came too quickly. Now he didn’t know what to do for her while it was taking so long. If they were in a hospital, she would have taken drugs a long time ago, and he wouldn’t have blamed her for doing so. She was in a lot of pain. Although, maybe in the hospital she wouldn’t have been so terrified, maybe she could have relaxed more, and it wouldn’t have been so bad.

He felt some measure of guilt for her suffering. Not just that he had gotten her pregnant. Although, that was the more irrational part of his guilt. The majority of it came from the knowledge that she was here instead of at a hospital because of him. Because Ethan and some nameless foe wanted to punish him, and now she was paying the price for Giles’ past sins.

Her stomach tightened beneath his hand, and he gently shook her awake, murmuring her name. He held her eyes with his and tried to help her breathe, but within moments she was in too much pain to focus. She clutched his hand tightly, and if she’d still been the Slayer, she would have broken his bones. As it was, he flinched, and now he was doing the breathing for himself as well as her. He kept his eye on the clock he had brought into the bathroom, counting out the length of the contraction for her. It seemed to help her when she knew how close she was to the end. And then her legs were moving again, restlessly kicking out and drawing in, and she was turning on her side. The water sloshed out of the tub as she turned and with each kick, soaking him to the skin as it had on every one before. He might as well be in the bloody bath with her for as much as she was drenching him.

And then he could tell when she was reaching the peak, because she would start to shake uncontrollably and whimper and get irritated with him for something he wasn’t doing right. This time she snapped, “Count faster!” She moaned at the top and pushed herself out of the water before sinking back down against his arm and gasping as the tension slowly left her. She released his hand, and he shook it out, flexing it gratefully, and working the feeling back into his fingers.

She asked him again, as she had a hundred times already, “How much longer?”

He gave her the only answer that he could ever give, that he didn’t know.

“It’s not supposed to be like this, is it? I mean, it shouldn’t take this long, even for normal women?”

From what Ethan had told him, Giles guessed that she had been in labor around 24 hours. The books said 10 hours was average for a first time mom, but that 24 hours was still within the realm of normal. Thirty-six and forty-eight hours weren’t unheard of either, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

He dodged the question, like he always did. “Just go back to sleep, Buffy. Conserve your energy.” She closed her eyes, and her exhaustion pulled her into an immediate slumber. Her arms floated at the surface, her nightgown swirling in the water below them and sticking to her damp chest and neck.

Giles snaked his free hand over to snatch a dry towel. He tried to soak up what she had drenched him with, and then used the towel to line the side of the tub and hopefully catch some of the overflow before it landed in his lap the next time. The water was cooling again, and he should add some more hot water, but he couldn’t reach the faucet without waking Buffy. It was more important to let her sleep for now.

He placed his hand once again on her belly in preparation for the next one. He wished he knew how close she was, but he had no idea how to check for dilation. He doubted that Buffy would let him even if he did. There were some things that were too personal, even for a husband.

Giles had nothing to compare this to, so he wondered, just as she did, whether other women labored this hard or this long. It crossed his mind that this might be part of the slayer package, that her powerful muscles might make labor more difficult. If her superhuman metabolism was focused on the babies, then maybe she was contracting with the intensity of a slayer. The Watcher’s Diaries all had huge blanks, and none of them described their slayers’ delivery experiences.

Then again, maybe this was normal for some women. Maybe it had something to do with Buffy’s tiny frame. There was another possibility he didn’t even want to consider. The twins could be stuck. Dr. Michaels had said it was very rare, but that “locked twins” could jam together and fill the space in such a way that neither could get out. If that were the case, then without a Caesarian, Buffy would labor until she died.

He closed his eyes against that thought and let his head fall against his own arm, beside her. He was so tired now, too, and maybe he could sleep for a few minutes also before he had to wake Buffy again. In the four hours since he had put her in the tub, her contractions had slowed to four or five minutes apart instead of the previous two or three, giving them both more of a break between.

He didn’t wake in time to prepare her for the next one, and it caught her halfway on the way up. The water splashing over the side as she bolted upright was what woke him. He blinked sleep from his eyes quickly and tried to help her, but she was already doubled over, stroking her abdomen and biting her lip. Her hand slammed into the wall, pushing against it with all her might as her head shook and buried itself against her own shoulder. He tried to massage out the tension from her back and shoulders, but she yelled at him to “Stop touching me!” and he knew she was at the peak.

She came down into his arms, and he laid her back against the tub, using this opportunity to add more hot water to the bath and to get the glass from the sink counter so he could make her drink. It was orange juice this time, because she needed not just the hydration but also the energy.

She smiled at him weakly and murmured, “I couldn’t do this without you, Giles.”

He smiled in return and smoothed the wet strands of hair from her cheeks and face. “No, I imagine you wouldn’t be doing this at all if it weren’t for me.”

Buffy chuckled at that before she closed her eyes and went back to sleep. He mopped the water from his lap again and curled up next to the tub, with one hand over his son and daughter. He wouldn’t fall asleep this time. He would stay awake, and the next one wouldn’t be so bad.

But they were getting worse anyway, and closer together again. By eight in the morning, Buffy couldn’t fall asleep between them anymore. She seemed to have drifted into her own world, so sometimes he had to say her name three times before she would realize he was there. Eventually, she asked him to sing to her. She thought it would help her relax. So he sang during the contractions, sang the song he had sung to her at Xander and Anya’s wedding, sang some songs by the Beatles, even sang a Backstreet Boy’s song that Dawn was always listening to. That made Buffy laugh to realize that he knew the words. Giles tried to keep her laughing. The pain didn’t seem as bad when she was. So he sang her silly songs, and bawdy drinking ballads, and told her lewd jokes that she couldn’t believe he knew.

Within a couple hours, he couldn’t keep her laughing anymore, and she was clinging to him, begging to know how much longer. She wanted him to sing now not just during the contractions, but between as well. She said it helped her to not think of the next one if he was singing. So he sang softly and constantly, even though his throat was getting sore. He sang relaxing lullabies and romantic ballads. She asked for the song they had danced to after marrying, and he sang that too, not revealing to her the pain it also carried for him now, how it reminded him of the last few days as he had mourned her.

He sang, but the whole time he kept one eye on the clock. They were three minutes apart, and then two. By noon they were a minute or less apart, lasting sometimes 80 or 90 seconds and sometimes coming back to back without a break. He knew she was in what the books called transition, and it wouldn’t be much longer. He had to get her out of the tub. He didn’t have the skills to try and deliver the twins underwater and in such a confined space, even though it probably would have been easier on Buffy. He frankly didn’t know if he had the skills to deliver them on the bed either, but it would at least be easier for a beginner.

Giles gathered some towels in preparation and when her contraction passed, he ordered her firmly out of the tub. She was too far-gone to argue, and obeyed without question. Giles thought he could order her to stand on her head, and she would just do it.

He dried her quickly and slipped a clean dry nightgown over her, hoping to make it back to the bed before the next one. They made it only as far as the doorway before she was leaning against him and moaning. He caught her as she went down to her knees and held her and rocked her and sang to her as she began to cry and then to scream. They seemed so much more intense when she was walking or upright. They were probably stronger out of the water too.

After it had passed, he helped her up and into the bed, insisting that she drink some more juice and placing cool rags against her forehead.

Giles moved the clock from the bathroom back to the nightstand. 12:24 pm. Buffy had been in labor nearly 33 hours. But she was almost at the end. He would be a father soon.

***

She is not the Slayer. The Slayer could escape this, could defeat it. The Slayer would laugh and make jokes and scoff at her for being such a baby. She is not Buffy Summers either. Buffy has a past that stretches beyond this room and a future that will contain more than this pain. Whoever she has become has only this moment and the one that came before and the one that will come after. Whoever she is now has no memory of not laying here, twisting on the bed, listening to Giles sing to her, and watching as each tick of the clock slows way d o w n . . . a n d . . . t  h  e  n . . . s    t    o   p    s . . . She hangs at the top and wonders who she has become. Buffy Summers is only the girl who did not think ahead to this moment. Buffy is the one who decided to have these babies, but whoever she is now, that woman did not choose this.

They seem to come in a steady stream of fire with no break. Giles tells her there is a minute between most of them, but it isn’t enough time to even catch her breath before the next one begins. And sometimes there really isn’t any break, and she can feel the next one rise before the last is even finished.

She is stuck between two such contractions, the next rising before the last has gone. Her fingernails dig into her palms even through the layers of bedsheets and towels; she is clenching them that tightly. And still the pressure builds, builds, builds, getting stronger beyond her ability to stand it. But she must stand it, because there is no choice. She cannot see the end to this pain. The intensity only climbs higher, like climbing a mountain and the top always seems to be just ahead, but you get there and realize that it’s an illusion and the top is just a bit further ahead, and you continue on and on, the peak always dancing just a little further ahead of you.

She moans and begins to bang her head back against the headboard. Giles quickly puts his hand behind her and tells her she mustn’t do that, she might hurt herself. She looks at him as if he is a stranger. He belongs to a world outside of this. He belongs to the Slayer and to Buffy Summers. Whoever she is now, he is outside her world, looking in. He does not feel this. He does not know her anymore.

“Keep singing,” she orders him bitterly.

She doesn’t know what he is singing. She hasn’t known for some time. She only hears him far away in the background, and it is a small comfort. It lets her know that time is still moving forward.

And she has climbed to the peak of her mountain, her whole body trembling from the effort, her mouth open in a silent scream. But she does not scream. To scream, one must have breath.

It goes away slowly, and she is counting the seconds down as well as up, always afraid that it will begin again before it releases her. This time it does stop, and she lays back against the bed, panting and waiting, knowing she won’t need to wait long before climbing the mountain again.

He says that she is in transition. She does not know what she is transitioning to. Is this the passageway that will lead to motherhood? Is this the doorway to some deeper mystery that will make her truly a woman? Will this buy her into that secret sisterhood who whisper together at parties and tell her she couldn’t understand until she’s had children of her own?

He tells her this is the shortest part, that it will all be over soon. He lies. He has been lying since the beginning, telling her over and over that it won’t be much longer. But it has been so much longer than she could have imagined. It has been lifetimes. The longest lifetime has been since climbing out of the bath and into this bed.

It is so much worse out of the bathtub, without the water to cradle her and take some of the pressure. She could almost relax a little in the water. She looks towards the tub with longing, but he will not let her get in, and she cannot make it by herself. She hates him for making her climb into this bed.

He wants her to drink, but she will not. She pretends to sip, so he will leave her alone. If she drinks, she will have to go again. If she has to go, she will have to leave her bed. If she leaves her bed, she will have to stand. If she stands, the wave will wash over her while she does. If it comes while she is standing, it will be more intense. If it gets any more intense, she will surely die. It is already more than she can bear. So she will not drink.

He has stopped singing again and is talking softly to her while he washes her skin with the cool rag. She is so hot. She has never been this hot, and she has lived her whole life in California. One summer the air conditioner broke for two weeks during a heat wave, and still she was not as hot as now.

But the next contraction is coming, washing over her, folding her in two with the power of it. Her hands grasp the sheets again, her legs bending and straightening. He is not singing. He is talking to her, and she must focus to understand the words.

He tells her to relax. Relax, relax, relax. As if she is just being stubborn. As if she wants it to feel this bad. She is reaching the peak, wavering at the top, holding right there and shaking and thrashing and whimpering, and it’s like sitting on top of the first rise for endless moments as she waits for the roller coaster to finally drop down beneath her. He tells her to relax one more time, and she snaps, “You fucking relax.” He wisely shuts up, and the wave is slowly ebbing. High tide. Low tide. She wonders which this is.

And then, minutes later, in the middle of a contraction, she grabs for him and tells him she has to go right now. He tells her it’s the baby she feels, but she shakes her head back and forth because it’s pressing, pressing, pressing down there and then at the peak she has to push right now. He tells her to go ahead and push, as if she needs his permission, as if he could stop her. And the wave passes, and she is laying back in the bed once more and panting and trying to rest before the next one can sneak up on her. She tells him she can feel the baby’s head right there, and it must surely be halfway out. But he only wipes the cool rag across her brow and informs her that she will probably have to push for a while yet.

She pushes on the next one with everything she has, and it is like a birdcage turning inside out. The contraction leaves her with just the fullness, and now the pressure remains even after the pain passes. She asks if he can see the head, but he answers that it will be a while yet. But it feels like it’s right there, she insists.

She pushes on the next one and the one after that. She keeps pushing and pushing, and it seems as if nothing is happening. She feels like she is rolling a boulder up a hill, and it keeps sliding back down as soon as she is close. The pressure remains unbearably strong between the contractions, and it means she gets no rest, but constantly shifts to find a better position. There is no better position, and he reminds her that it won’t go away until the baby is out. And then another one is coming, and she grabs for his hand and pushes down into the pressure and begs the baby to come out, out, out.

She flops back into the pillows, gasping, and asks him what time it is. He tells her not to think about that and just rest for now. She lifts her head and demands, “Just give me the goddamn time.”

“A little past three,” he answers.

The number means nothing to her. She still doesn’t know how long she has been pushing. She continues until he tells her it is half past four. The sounds that come from her mouth seem almost inhuman. She didn’t know she was capable of such deep guttural noises and sometimes the pitch rises as the intensity rises until she is almost screaming through the pain, and he must bring her focus to him and help her lower the tone. Sometimes he moans with her, deep and resonant in his chest, and she feels the vibration where their foreheads touch and where he cradles her shoulders, and she can keep her tone deep and low as long as he is doing it with her.

Her body shakes with the effort and with the intensity. A little after five, and the pressure changes to burning, and he tells her he can see the head. Just a little more. The next one, and she is stretching until it feels like she will split open. Just a little more. Another, and still the pressure, the burning, the stretching. Just a little more. She is gasping, her energy almost gone. She is pushing with everything she has, and still it is not enough. This will never end. And she tells him she doesn’t believe him. He is lying because he feels sorry for her. He has been telling her she is close for hours, and it will be hours more. But he takes her fingers and places them between her legs, against their baby’s head. She can feel the wet curls of hair, and asks him what color hair the baby has. He laughs and says they won’t be able to tell until it dries.

Then she realizes that it is a baby she is touching. Her baby. The next contraction comes, and she pants over it, pulling him up to her side, saying, “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

He smoothes back the hair that clings to her forehead and neck. “Just a few more pushes, Buffy. You’re almost there.”

But he misunderstands. “No, no, no.” She is still panting over the intensity of the contraction, panting so she won’t push, and she insists, “I’m not ready to be a mom. I won a goldfish at the fair, and it died after like a week. How am I supposed to take care of a baby if I can’t keep a stupid fish alive?” The wave fades away, and she leans against his chest. “I won’t know what to do when he cries. What if I drop him? What if he doesn’t like me? How am I supposed to get him to do his homework and go to bed and not run out in the street if I can’t even get Dawn to listen to me? And I don’t know why the sky is blue or why dinosaurs are extinct or how far down the dirt goes. He’s going to think I’m stupid.”

He shuts her up with a kiss and holds her chin in the palm of his hands. “You are going to be a wonderful mother, Buffy. No one gets it all right on the first try. Everyone makes mistakes. But look how much you’ve done for Dawn since your mother died. You have more love in you than anyone I have ever known, and that is all these babies will need from you. Don’t forget, you are not alone in this. We’ll figure it out together.” He kisses her again. “You are going to make an excellent mother. I have no doubt of that. You can do this. Are you ready?”

She nods, and he slides back to sit between her legs. The next one comes only a moment later, and she is bearing down with a power and force she didn’t even know she possessed. The head is almost there, but the wave is passing, and she must wait for the next. She moans and whimpers against the incredible pressure and the fullness and the burning and stretching and the strange sensation of having the baby’s head right there.

The next one comes, and she releases herself over to it, surrenders and throws herself into the eye of the storm. She pushes once and the head is free, again and each shoulder follows, one last time and her child slips from her, with an unbelievable sense of release. Giles tells her they have a son and lays him across her stomach. She is crying, and when she looks, she can see tears in his eyes too. He is drying the boy with a towel, and the baby begins to cry, his skin pinking up, his little hands clasping and unclasping, his feet stretching out and then curling under him.

“Oh my God, Giles, he’s perfect.” She is laughing and crying at the same time, tracing her fingers over the lines of her son’s feet and hands. His eyes are open, and he is looking up at her. She reaches for his father and kisses him until he is as breathless as she. Giles lays his hand over their son, letting his fingers brush against the tiny cheeks, letting the tiny hand curl around his finger. He kisses her again on the forehead, and returns to his spot between her legs. He pulls something from the bag he brought and is clamping and cutting the cord. He takes a clean towel and bundles the child in it before giving him back to his mother.

“Let me know when you’re ready for the next baby,” he tells her.

She balks. “Even if I could get pregnant again, I have to tell you that this is a one shot deal, Mister.”

He chuckles. “I was referring to the second baby you still have inside you. Tell me when you feel the need to push again.”

“I have to do it again?” she wails. “Isn’t one enough?” She looks down at the baby in her arms, so tiny, so perfect. She can see a little of herself, a little of what Dawn looked like as a baby, her mother’s forehead, and some of Giles’ features as well. She passes the baby to his father, and he holds his son against his chest until she tells him that she feels the next contraction. He lays the baby down out of the way, and they start all over again.

***

5:17pm was the exact moment his son came into the world. The boy’s first cry brought tears to Giles’ eyes and filled a space he didn’t even know was empty. He thought he did pretty well for his first attempt at delivering a baby. The child was squirming and turning pink within minutes. Of course, Buffy had done most of the work. Poor girl had labored for nearly 38 hours, had pushed for over three. She was crying now with joy, but he could still see the total exhaustion in her face. And she wasn’t finished yet. Neither was he. The next one would be trickier, would require more help on his part, and he mentally reviewed Dr. Michaels’ instructions as he toweled off his son. He clamped and cut the umbilical cord, knowing that if he did it wrong, Buffy would lose blood as the second twin came.

And then he was holding his son in his arms for the very first time. He guessed the boy couldn’t weigh much over five pounds. It looked like he might have Buffy’s blue eyes after all, but Giles remembered reading somewhere that all babies had blue eyes in the beginning.

Buffy called for him again, even as she curled up and bore down. He set the baby on the bed out of the way and waited for his daughter. Dr. Michaels had said the second twin would come much faster, in normal births within 15 or 20 minutes of the first. He was right, because in less than ten minutes, Giles could see her little bottom. He asked Buffy not to push for a moment, and from her soft whimpers and shaking head, he could tell what it was costing her not to give in to her instincts.

His heart raced, and he replayed the doctor’s instructions three times before he carried out each action. He followed the curve of the baby’s butt, sliding two fingers inside along the back of the baby’s calves. Buffy howled as he did this, glaring at him as if she couldn’t believe he was adding to her pain. He felt for the knees, eventually sliding his other two fingers inside to reach. Her eyes got even wider as he did. His thumb held the baby’s bottom firmly in place, preventing any further progress.

Buffy was panting and her soft whines became more desperate. She must have been nearing the peak. He could feel her pushing against his fingers, and he firmly reminded her again, “Don’t push.”

“I’m trying,” she wailed. “But you’re not helping. Whatever you’re doing, it feels really weird. Not to mention hurts.”

“I’m getting the baby’s legs,” he informed her. His fingers gained a solid grasp on the knees, and he wriggled the legs free, unfolding the child from Buffy’s body. Her contraction had passed by then, though, so he would have to wait for the next before he could finish. He cradled the lower half of the infant’s body in his hand, trying to keep the weight from cutting off the precious flow of oxygen through the cord. The girl’s legs curled up and kicked out in his hand, and he smiled. So far, so good.

“Buffy.” She had slipped into her own world again, and he had to say her name four times before he had her attention. “This is important. On the next one, push with everything you’ve got.”

“Instead of all the other times when I was holding back?” she retorted sarcastically.

“Yes, well, we have to get her out in one go or her oxygen’s likely to get cut off. I’ll help you.”

Giles placed his free hand at the top of her stomach and waited for the next contraction to begin. As it started, Buffy took a deep breath, tucked her chin to her chest, pulled her knees up, and bore down. The moment she did, he pressed down on the top of her stomach with his own hand, adding his force to hers.

“Owww!” she screamed at him. “You can stop helping me!”

“Keep pushing, Buffy,” he told her. “The shoulders are out. Now just the head.”

He continued to push down with her, and she howled in pain. “Stop it right now! You’re hurting me!” She tried to shove his hand off of her, but he held firm.

“Come on, Buffy,” he urged her. “Just a little more.”

One more push, and he caught the girl as she was born. Buffy collapsed back against the bed, but Giles had eyes only for his daughter.

Something was wrong.

Her feet and hands scrunched up close to her body, but she made no effort to breathe or cry.

Don’t panic, Giles, he thought to himself. She’s still getting oxygen through the cord. You have time.

He grabbed a towel and vigorously rubbed the baby from head to toe, trying to stimulate her first breath. He swept one finger in her mouth to clear the passage. She wouldn’t breathe.

“What’s wrong, Giles?” Buffy asked weakly. “Why isn’t she crying?”

He looked up to try and reassure her, and that’s when he saw it. Blood soaking into the sheets and towels between her legs. Too much of it. He looked back and forth between his wife and daughter. He didn’t know how to help either of them. He turned to the video camera in desperation. “For the love of God, Ethan, send us a doctor!”

“Giles, what is it?” Buffy’s voice was panicked, but she lacked the strength to rise off the bed.

“Just lie still, Buffy. Rest.” Buffy was crying, and now his son was wailing as well. But there was no answering sound from the girl. CPR, he remembered. You know this. You can do this.

Giles lifted his daughter. Barely five pounds, she fit completely in both hands. He bent over her, covered her mouth and nose with his lips, and breathed for her. Small puffs of air, and he saw her chest rise and fall with each one. The cord had stopped beating, now she was getting all of her air from him. Six or seven breaths, which felt like hours, and then the baby shuddered in his hands and began to cry. She curled herself into a tight little ball and howled her protest at leaving the comfort of her mother’s womb.

Giles breathed a sigh of relief and leaned his forehead down to touch hers. Her tiny hands waved through the air, and her keening wail turned into hiccupping sobs. “Shhh, Little One,” he soothed. “You gave your father quite a scare.”

“Let me see her,” Buffy whispered.

He turned to his wife and saw that there was even more blood than just a few moments ago. He didn’t know how to stop it. He laid his daughter on a clean towel, clamped and cut her cord as he had his son’s, and bundled her tight before passing the baby up to Buffy. He took their son and placed him in her arms as well.

“They’re both perfect,” she murmured solemnly.

“Yes,” he agreed, still watching the blood slowly flow from his wife. The afterbirth hadn’t come yet. The doctor had said hemorrhage was a risk with twins. Nothing to be concerned about, he had told them, a little Pitocin should fix whatever problems she might have. Except that Giles didn’t have any damn Pitocin.

Her legs were shaking, and her voice was faint when she told him, “Giles, I’m cold.”

He took a blanket and covered her and their twins. He smiled sadly and kissed her gently on the mouth. “The afterbirth hasn’t come yet, Buffy. Let me know if you feel like you have to push again.”

She nodded and relaxed into the pillows, her eyes half open. Giles returned to his position, watching the circle of blood continually expand outwards across the sheets between her legs. How much blood could she lose? After all this, would he really be forced to sit here and watch Buffy bleed to death? Could Fate be so cruel?

“Giles,” she whispered.

“Now?” he asked, but even as he asked it, he saw that she was looking past him. He turned to follow her stare, and that’s when he saw Ethan and the two other men beside him. He hoped one of them might be a doctor, but he doubted it.

“Ethan,” Giles pleaded. “You were my friend once.”

“Mr. Rayne has only the smallest part in this,” the older man beside him said. “And he will follow my orders at this particular moment. So let us leave him out of this conversation for right now. Let us talk, just you and I, Mr. Giles.”

The white haired gentleman approached, leaning heavily against an ornate wood cane. Any hope for heroics that Giles might have had were quickly dashed when the man beside Ethan drew a revolver from his belt and leveled it at the Watcher. Ethan shrugged, as if to say what can I do?

The elderly man, perhaps seventy years old, more or less, neared the side of their bed. He smiled at Buffy and the twins. “Such lovely children your girl makes. I must admit you impressed me today, Mr. Giles. I never imagined you had it in you to play midwife.”

The man owned a refined British accent, but Giles couldn’t place the exact dialect, only that it was familiar. He had been away from home too long. “Am I supposed to know you?”

His adversary limped over on his cane, stopping directly in front of Giles. “I had been informed that watchers were prized for their excellent memories. Perhaps you should look closer.”

Giles studied his opponent. The man had aged well, wrinkles across his brow and around his mouth and eyes. Thick, white hair. A build that was neither impressive nor weak. Dark eyes, long nose, and thin lips. There was nothing about the man that was familiar. At least until he smiled. The smile was all too familiar, and then the other features clicked into place as well. Giles hadn’t seen the man in twenty-five years, and then only the once. But turn back the clock all those years and he would know the man on sight. He had certainly seen enough photos of the man before him.

“Everett Longsworth?”

Longsworth laughed and tapped his cane on the floor a couple times. “Good show. I knew you would remember me.”

Giles heard Buffy’s voice behind him. It was getting so much softer. “You know him, Giles? Who is he?”

Giles swallowed his guilt and looked away. “He’s Randall’s father.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Did he tell you how he murdered my boy?” Longsworth asked, turning and limping away. “Did he tell you how there wasn’t even a body for them to send home to me?”

Giles looked over to Ethan, but his old friend wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Mr. Longsworth, believe me, if my life would have saved Randall’s, I would have given it. Gladly. None of us meant for that to happen. We did everything we could to save him.”

Longsworth began pacing, three hobbling steps in one direction and then three steps back. “Do you know how many detectives I had to hire? How many so-called paranormal investigators? How much information I had to purchase to discover my son’s true fate? The coroner’s report said he was burned to ash when a fire leveled your flat. But you set the fire, didn’t you, Mr. Giles?” Longsworth spun and pointed his cane at Giles. “You set the fire to hide what you had done, what all of you had done. Randall was all I had. His mother died when he was five. He was my only son. I don’t know how he got involved in witchcraft and black magic. I suspect you might have pressured him into it, Mr. Giles. Before he met you, he only wanted to be a photographer. To walk along a street in India or China and capture simple pictures of people in their everyday lives. Instead, you got him to drop out of Oxford, got him to involve himself in magic and demon summoning.”

“We never thought it would go so far,” Giles insisted again.

“But it did. And it cost Randall his life.”

Giles bowed his head in shame.

“It took me over ten years to piece together the story of Eyghon. And then I searched for all of you, but you had scattered. And you, Mr. Giles, some organization called the Watcher’s Council had you shielded behind so much red tape I couldn’t find you. In the end, I could only find young Thomas Sutcliffe. But in the end, that was enough, or at least it should have been. I had used my twenty years well, Mr. Giles. I could play by your game as well as you. You see, I was the one who summoned Eyghon back and put him in Thomas.” Longsworth laughed, stopped pacing, and limped back over to Giles. “I couldn’t find all those who had killed my boy, so I summoned the demon to hunt you for me.”

Giles stood and stepped mere inches from the older man’s face. The watcher could feel the cold rage wash over and consume all his guilt and shame. He returned the older man’s hatred now with an equal passion. “Thomas. Diedre. Philip. What we did by mistake, you have done three times over. You have become the very thing you condemn us for. Only we were never murderers, never killers. Randall’s death was a tragic accident, one which we all regretted and wished we could take back. We were young and foolish and thought we were invincible. But when you summoned Eyghon, you knew what you were doing. You summoned him to commit murder on your behalf.”

Longsworth’s dark eyes narrowed. “Not murder. Vengeance. Justice. Poetic justice, actually, to send the lot of you to the same fate you sent my son. How you and Ethan escaped that fate was something that took a bit more research. And finding you took a bit more time.”

“So now what? You going to kill me? Will that bring Randall back?”

A slight smirk twisted the older man’s mouth. “No, I am done with killing. Ethan I have spared for his help in this matter. But you, Mr. Giles, were the one who actually murdered my boy. You gave up on him and put your sword through him. You see, money buys all kinds of information.” Longsworth turned and hobbled towards the door, leaning heavily on his cane. He paused before exiting the room and faced Giles once again. “I won’t kill you, Mr. Giles. I want you alive. I want you to suffer as I have suffered.” Two other men entered the room behind him and walked towards the bed.

“You took my son, Mr. Giles. Now I’m going to take yours.”

There was nothing Giles could do. The man beside Ethan had a gun pointed at him. One of the newcomers had a gun as well, pointed at Buffy. The second newcomer approached the bed and reached for the baby.

“No, please,” Buffy sobbed behind him, clinging to the two twins. The hammer of the revolver clicked back into position, and she released their son.

“Take the girl as well,” Longsworth added.

“Wait!” Ethan finally spoke. “That wasn’t part of the deal. You said they could keep the girl.”

“I changed my mind. You would do well to remember, Mr. Rayne, that you live by my grace alone. You say one more word about it, and perhaps I’ll just have his wife shot for good measure.”

Ethan backed down.

Their son was given to the man holding the gun on Buffy. Then their daughter was taken as well, and the two newcomers left the room, carrying the twins away from their parents.

Longsworth addressed the man beside Ethan. “Sulla, make sure he doesn’t follow us.”

Sulla only grinned and aimed his gun. He fired once, bringing Giles to his knees. The bullet caught him in the upper thigh, and he couldn’t breathe for a moment for the pain. He leaned against the bed, holding his leg, feeling the blood run through his fingers. It was coming so fast, Sulla must have hit an artery.

And then the parting words before Longsworth and Sulla left. “Remember this day always, Mr. Giles, and know what my Randall’s death has cost you.”

Only Ethan remaining, and he looked between Watcher and Slayer, as if unsure what to do. “There’s an ambulance coming for you and Buffy. Just hold on, mate.”

Ethan walked out as well, leaving Giles alone with his wife. The door their children were taken through barely ten feet away and open now. But Giles could not make it even that far. He pulled himself closer to Buffy, still pressing on his leg, still trying to stop the flow. The pain carved its way up his leg and into his groin, down from the wound and into his calf. He reached for his slayer’s hand. The blood was still seeping into the sheets beneath her, and her tears were becoming more labored.

“Giles, I’m so tired. I can’t keep my eyes open.”

He clasped her hand in his and laid his forehead on their joined hands. “Hold on, Buffy, just a little while longer. Help is coming.”

They were both bleeding to death. She had a head start on him, but he was quickly catching up. His vision was already growing dark, and he looked down at the growing puddle of blood he was sitting in. When he returned his head to rest once again on their hands, she was watching him through half-open eyes. “Buffy, I swear to you, we’ll find them.” He kissed her fingers, and that was the last thing he remembered.

***

Author's Note:
Ok, when I was first writing this, I had a “name the baby contest” after posting this chapter. I must admit, it was a shameless attempt to garner feedback, but it worked splendidly. If you’re curious and want the details, here’s the link:
Baby Name Contest Winner!

DBC Home Back: Part 5: Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride Next: Part 7: Half-Hearted

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