Title: The Surrogate 18/19
Author: Jacqui
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Buffy, Giles and all other assorted Buffy candies belong to Joss Whedon, WB and ME. Elizabeth, and everything from her world, belongs to me (the real me, not the 'grr aargh' ME).
Notes: This has been a long, hard, but very interesting and certainly fun road to travel. In some ways it's kind of sad to leave this series behind. It's almost over. Woo boy, angst ahead, don't say I didn't warn ye.
Dedication: I'd like to dedicate this whole series to Gabi, you don't know how much we appreciate what you took on for us. And also Solo84, we loved ya babe and were sorry to see ya go.
Feedback: Give me a happy, for old times' sake. wily_one24@yahoo.com.au
Chloe was crying and it was a delicious sound. Buffy bounced on the balls of her feet as she paced back and forth across the room, murmuring senseless words into the baby's flushed ears. The shape of her seemed just right, tailor made to fit into Buffy's arms, to nestle just so in the hollow of her neck, the perfect position for Buffy to just bend her neck and place a loving kiss on the top of her head.
"Shh, come on now, Daddy Giles is getting your bottle as we speak."
She cast her eyes at the door, silently praying that the slightly haggard form of Giles would be stumbling up the stairs with said bottle in hand. Leaning against the doorframe, Elizabeth stood watching her. Buffy tried to smile.
"Hey, look, there's Mommy." She hefted Chloe a little, turning her to face Elizabeth. She raised her eyebrows. "Do you want to hold her, just a little?"
Elizabeth gave a sad smile, an acknowledgement that didn't reach her eyes, then silently shook her head. She seemed to melt away as she slid out of the doorway and returned to her room.
Buffy sighed.
"Shh, it's okay." She bounced a little more. "She'll come around."
* * * *
Xander and Anya came through the door with an array of floating balloons and flowers. Their eyes hungrily scanned the apartment and settled on the arm chair, where Giles sat. His glasses were skewed just a little over his right eye, a book lying open in one hand, in the other a sleeping Chloe. A cup of tea sat forgotten on the table next to him, along with a half empty bottle.
"You wake him, or her, you're in trouble." Buffy's voice floated from the kitchen. "How's Wes?"
"Hey Buff." Xander grabbed the kitchen doorway with one hand and let himself twirl into the kitchen, his other hand holding out a bunch of shiny ribbons attached to several colored balloons. A smile graced his lips and he landed a kiss on Buffy's cheek. She smiled at him as she took the offered gift. "He's doing better."
"He's still got all these tubes and stuff." Anya quickly ascertained the best place for the multitude of flowers she held and let them fall from her arms all over the table. "But he can breathe on his own now."
"It was touch and go for a while, what, with a punctured lung and all, but the doctors say he'll be okay."
"Good. That's good." Buffy wiped her hands down the sides of her pants, suds soaking into the material almost instantly. She left the rest of the dishes in the sink. "And Cordy, Angel?"
"Oh, they left." Anya's eyes swept the kitchen. Anybody might have been fooled by the wide innocence, but Xander and Buffy knew better. "You got any cookies?"
"Ahn," Xander gave her a mock frown, then turned to Buffy with pleading eyes. "Do you? 'Cause if I have to look at hospital food again, I may give up eating altogether."
"I'll see what I can do." Buffy's eyes smiled as she reached for the barrel.
"As for Brood Boy and Cordy, they got off just fine. They said they'd be back on Saturday. You know, to check on Wes, finalize a few things..."
"Catch up on baby snuggles?" Buffy almost grinned as she produced the cookies with flourish. "They're not fooling anyone."
The door opened as Xander and Anya descended on food that wasn't wrapped in single plastic portions, Willow and Tara quickly surveyed the situation and decided against a loud, hearty greeting and went straight into whispered hellos.
"How you feeling, Will?" As Willow plastered her face with a big smile, Buffy raised her eyebrow and it made Willow's face fall a little. "And the truth, please?"
"Well, okay, I'm still humming a little and sometimes my hands crackle, but the nose bleeds have stopped and I'm not blinded by migraines anymore. That's gotta be a plus, right?"
They looked at each other for a moment, surrounded in quiet. Then Willow coughed. Loudly. Not very convincingly.
"Willow!"
Buffy glared at her. Willow's eyes went wide, but her mouth turned up in a grin as she looked over to Chloe and Giles sleeping on the sofa. Damn, it hadn't worked. Tara had to stifle a giggle.
* * * *
Elizabeth sat on the floor, her legs scrunched up to her chest as she leaned against the wall. The door was open and she could hear the muffled voices wash over her. They were happy. She was glad for them, she really was. She was happy that things had turned out all right. It soothed her to know that Chloe was safe.
Her baby was safe because of these people. She had done nothing, not a damned thing, things had gotten hard and she had dissolved. Elizabeth could almost visualize the hatred she felt for herself, the growing ooze that engulfed her.
She was glad that they were happy.
* * * *
Xander lay on his back on the floor, his knees crooked. In the curve of his thighs lay Chloe, the beginnings of a smile cracking her face as her eyes followed Xander's hand and the large pink teddy that he waived in front of her face. Anya sat next to them, delighted, just itching to swoop in and take the child into her own arms.
"You love your uncle Xander, don't you? Yes you do, yes you do."
"She loves her aunt Anya more, don't you sweetie? Of course you do." Anya preened just a little, she lowered her voice. "I'll buy you all candy you want and let you watch M movies before you're twelve."
"I heard that." Buffy didn't even turn around as she sat at the table.
"Mommy Giles has supernatural hearing, doesn't she?" Xander softly batted Chloe's forehead with the teddy. Anya huffed.
"We'll talk kid."
At the table, Giles laughed to himself. A great feeling of relief had swarmed through him in the last few days. Things had settled down, recovered, it was almost as if nothing had happened. But it had. He couldn't forget that and he knew that Buffy couldn't either.
They both heard the screams late at night, the screams that had followed them up the elevator that night. They both felt their feet rooted into the ground and stopping them from turning back. They'd only talked about it once, he and Buffy.
The fact that she had left humans there to die didn't lie easy with her. The fact that she had let Ethan exact the punishment that had rightly been theirs didn't lie easy with her. The fact that she had almost forgiven Ethan just before he had sacrificed himself didn't lie easy with her.
But they were dealing.
"I'm sorry? You were saying?"
He gave Willow a nod to continue and felt Buffy give his hand a squeeze underneath the table, he smiled a small reassuring smile at her, not sure whether she would believe it.
"I've been looking over the files you brought back with you." Willow tapped her fingers nervously on the table. "It's very interesting stuff. Medical explanations for the slayer, stuff like that."
Suddenly, Buffy seemed interested.
"Go on."
"Well, it's all pretty straight forward here, in this report." Willow handed Engelman's research over to them. "Hyperactive body systems and all that which, by the way, would explain Faith's comment about being hungry and…"
She stopped as Buffy glared at her, gulped and continued.
"Aaaaanway, it looks like Dr. Engelman was doing some extra research which explains the whole thing. It's… um… it's a chromosome thing."
"Well, that explains everything." Buffy looked at Willow. "A chromosome thing?"
"Yeah, you see, in DNA sets of chromosomes come in pairs, right? A pair of 46 chromosomes. Reproductive cells divide and become a single set of 23, which allows them to join with the other set to form a baby with 46. Right?"
Tara shrugged and Buffy blinked.
"I guess. You're the genius, Will."
"Ok, so to get a slayer in the male reproductive cells, you know…" Willow blushed. "The sperm? These chromosomes split, but it's like their number is still 46."
Giles looked up, interested.
"You're saying that Buffy has an extra strand of chromosomes?"
"Ah, no. If she did, she wouldn't be human, I don't know what she'd be, but she wouldn't be human. It's kind of hard to explain, it's like… there are two strands, right? Each have 23 chromosomes. In a slayer, it's like… she still has the two strands, but one of them is just bigger. Not bigger, just… double. I'm not sure how to explain it… but… it's not an extra one, or a bigger one, it's just…" She strained to think of the right word and then gave up with a shrug. "double."
"I'm a mutation?" Buffy was just slightly indignant.
"No! No, no. Not a mutation, not at all. Um, more of an upgrade, really. Added gigabytes."
"I'm a mutated computer?"
"There's no way out of this is there?" Willow looked to Tara for sympathy. Possibly help. She brightened, hoping she wasn't too obvious in her change of subject. "Also, it's carried in the x chromosome! Which would explain why slayers are mostly women. The two x's compliment each other, whereas a larger x would dominate a y. See?"
Giles studied the papers before him. It was almost an anticlimax, having statistics and medical proof as to the existence of slayers. How many centuries had the Council dedicated to serving these girls and women? How many watchers had given themselves to a cause they believed mystical and magical? It didn't matter, he decided, not in the end.
He looked at Buffy and smiled as she playfully batted at Willow and poked out her tongue. She didn't need extra genes to be magical.
* * * *
"You sure you don't want to come down?"
Buffy sat on the bed, she wanted to reach out and place her hand on Elizabeth's side, run her fingers over her shoulders in comfort, but she couldn't. Elizabeth had closed herself off after the Initiative, distanced herself. Buffy could feel the pain radiate off the woman and wished she knew how to make it better.
"Please?"
The word echoed around her head, please, please. Elizabeth wasn't sure whether Buffy had asked it, or whether it was a plea from her own throat, a plea for Buffy to just give up. She had lost track of those things. Her shoulders tightened and she wished she still had tears to shed.
"I miss you." Buffy whispered the words as a tear slid down her cheek.
* * * *
It was dark. Elizabeth knew that everyone was asleep, she had been lying awake for hours listening to the soft noises of the apartment. Muffled voices finally saying their goodbyes, the water in the bathroom as Buffy and Giles had gotten ready for bed, the soft voice of Giles singing Chloe to sleep. Soft, hushed, intimate voices as Buffy and Giles talked each other to sleep.
Now there was quiet. Elizabeth strove to keep it quiet as she crept out of bed, tip toeing down the hall. She opened up the door to Buffy and Giles' bedroom and she looked to the crib that had been placed there. They'd taken Chloe out of her room once they'd gotten back. It was for the best.
Chloe wasn't in her crib, Elizabeth's eyes immediately went to the bed. They lay there, Buffy and Giles, facing each other, sleeping peacefully. Elizabeth might have smiled, but the scene cut too harshly. Chloe lay sleeping between them.
They were a family.
She walked over to them, her eyes dancing over the all too familiar curves of Buffy's face, the line of her shoulder. She let herself take in a glance at Giles' profile, the breathing skin, the life that glowed from him. Then she reached out and touched the small and tiny form of her daughter. Chloe's stomach rose and fell with her breath, her eyelids twitched in her sleep. The bridge of her nose crinkled. It cut Elizabeth hard. She wanted to cry.
"I'm sorry, babygirl. I'm so sorry."
She turned and walked out of the room, carefully choosing her footsteps as she made her way down the stairs. Hot tears pricked her eyes, but she forced them down, forced her stomach to grow cold. She didn't want to feel it.
Not yet.
* * * *
A beam of moonlight was making her eye twitch. Buffy woke up slowly. She smiled at the sleeping forms of Chloe and Giles before her. It was such a perfect scene. She only wished that Elizabeth would recover from her depression so that the picture would be complete.
Elizabeth.
A sudden clearness washed over her and her heart sank.
"Giles!" She hissed the words, hurriedly gathering Chloe into her arms, ignoring the soft, gurgled protest. "Giles wake up!"
"Hmm?" Giles brought his hand up to his face and blearily ground his fist into his eye. "What?"
"Get up, Giles, it's Elizabeth!"
He could barely catch up with her as she ran down the stairs and he didn't have time to figure out what the panic was about, but he understood the moment that he saw Buffy standing still in the living room.
"Giles!"
It was a moan, a cry of desperation and he watched Buffy turn around, spreading his arms to catch her in a hug. She shook as she cried, careful not to crush Chloe between them. Over her shoulder, Giles looked at the open book lying on the table.
The book that had sent Elizabeth home.
* * * *
The air was warmer than she remembered it. There was an eerily silent quality to everything. Without thinking, Elizabeth reached out to Buffy, calling out to reassure herself. She was hit, almost physically, with the reminder that there was no longer any Buffy to call for, no Willow, nobody.
This was definitely not their world, it was her world. Maybe the only world. A sound assaulted her ears, a soft, feminine laugh, coupled with a throaty deeper one. Elizabeth turned to look inside the window and the shock took the breath out of her.
Here she was, standing outside her apartment, the one she'd shared with Rupert for so long, and nothing about it was the same. Inside, the furniture was different, the people were different, so too, she suspected, the very feeling would be different. No longer was this place home.
She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them. She had a purpose.
* * * *
He sat in a corner booth, the seat under him almost worn smooth to his shape. A cigarette stood between his fingers, forgotten, the ash teetering precariously. Given a few more seconds, it would fall in a heap, dusting the insides of his fingers with hot ash. Occasionally, the waitress would come by, swiping at the table with a greasy cloth, asking if he was okay.
Occasionally, he would reply, maybe ask for another drink. The staff had learned not to ask him what was wrong, to just accept his presence. There was a definite inevitability to this man's downfall. He didn't meet anyone's eye and if the bar got too crowded, he would shuffle out the door without getting anyone's attention.
The barman today watched with undisguised curiosity as a woman came to stand at the table. She looked down at the man, a vague hostility coming off her in waves. Her slender wrist came forward and she pushed the ashtray closer to him.
Ethan looked up, a reply ready on his lips for the usual waitress. Elizabeth counted five full seconds before he reacted. It was a slow process, the slight widening of his eyes, the slackening of his mouth and the blinking of his eyelids.
Her face did not move, frozen in the one expression.
"You're alive?" He shifted suddenly, shuffling out of his slouch, making subtle gestures that welcomed her to sit across from him.
"You're surprised?" She leaned down, bringing her face close to his. "Let me tell you something, Ethan, I'm stronger that you realize. But you'll soon learn."
"Eliza…"
She slammed her hand down on the table, making him wince.
"No. There is nothing you could say that I want to listen to. I have spent years hiding and cowering and mourning. It stops and it stops now, do you understand me?"
"I…"
"Do you think I'm joking? Do you think, for just one moment, that I wouldn't tear you limb from limb right here on the spot? Because I will, god help me, I'll do it."
He didn't doubt it, not for one second, he could see the barely contained anger that shuddered and rippled underneath her surface. Months ago, he wouldn't have bothered looking, he would have just lashed out at her, ecstatic to have her within his grasp. Now, he felt drained.
"I'm sorry."
"Yes." She kept looking at him. "You are a very sorry man, Ethan, you don't deserve to live when everyone I love is dead because of you."
His eyes flickered downwards, barely resting on her flat belly before returning to her face, the question dying before it even reached his lips. It seemed obscene to her that he should even acknowledge Chloe's existence, let alone ask her about it. Elizabeth had to stop herself from hitting him in that instant, instead she breathed in and made sure he was looking in her eyes. She wanted him to see the pain he had caused.
Then she began to tell her story.
* * * *
It was still dark as she walked along the street, her feet hitting the ground without her notice.
An ache, so deep it ate at her, stemmed from her belly. Chloe, her little baby, her darling little girl, was calling to her. Maybe she was calling to Chloe. She didn't know. She could almost curse the others for being able to stay, for belonging to that world. Almost, but didn't.
Thoughts of a small round head, covered with downy hair, a soft, pink mouth puckered, the softest little sigh, tiny fat fingers already dimpled, eyelids that crinkled when they closed, a face that opened when it laughed. A million thoughts, they all assured her that she'd done the right thing.
No matter how it hurt, no matter how much she wanted to spit out the parts of her that made her leave Chloe, she could never have bought that baby back here, to this desolate place. Elizabeth looked at the empty streets and did not know where to go.
She walked along the street, her feet knowing the way instinctively, her hand and the small of her back yearning for the familiar comfort that the weight of a pram gave. As she walked, the tears threatened to spill again, but she held them back.
An image sprang out to her, Giles standing in the living room, reaching out his hand to a surprised Buffy. How Buffy had smiled when she'd accepted and Giles had pulled her into a lively, but slow and intimate dance, just the two of them in their world. The way they'd looked at each other, the way they'd leaned into each other, had spoken to each other without saying a word.
Elizabeth could imagine, now, one of Willow's bright, flashing smiles, the bright white teeth, the lips in a grin so infectious you couldn't help but follow, her green eyes all but dancing in their sockets with laughter. The light, beautiful voice falling from her throat.
And there was Xander, his face so infectious with humor, his voice carried high with one of his jokes, she could see him now. His eyes, deep brown pools of hidden depths, picking up on tensions and breaking them with a much needed joke.
There, too, even was Joyce. Her eyes so full of warmth, of safety, her smile so sincere. Joyce, with the embrace that could melt you if you let it and the voice so full of wisdom, but an innocent wisdom, one that strove to understand, wanted to believe. Anything for her daughter.
These people, they were alive back there. Them and more. She thought of Anya, of Tara, of them all and how these were the people that she wanted Chloe to grow up with. In a very deep and selfish way, she couldn't help but want to have her baby with her, no matter how much danger it put them in, and yet, even more selfish, she wanted her daughter to experience a world where these people, at least for some time yet, could be with her, teach her, love her. Give her everything that Elizabeth couldn't.
It came upon her without warning. It was a shock to her, suddenly, to find the grave back where it should be. For so long now, she'd been to the cemetery to visit a blank plot, a nameless, faceless plot, as it should always have been. As it wasn't here, in her reality. There were those hated words, his name, his birth and death dates.
So few words to encapsulate the man he had been. Elizabeth knelt down in the dirt. The grass had built up over the months, as if this weren't a relatively new grave, as it this was an old, forgotten, neglected grave, belonging to those whose family had finally moved on, grieved.
Suddenly, surprising herself, she threw herself at the earth, clawing at it, digging into it, pressing herself as deep as she could go. It was as if the dirt could cover her, release her, cleanse her of her pain. She gulped hard, trying with everything she had, to breathe in fresh air, fighting with her body to let her breathe.
The tears finally came.
She called to Rupert, then, called his name as she flung fistfuls of earth over her head, away from her. Her voice grew hoarse with the curses she threw, the pleas she cried, the apologies she begged. And even though she dug with all her strength, even though she tore her nails again and again until the blood flowed freely, there was no answer.
Nobody came to hold her. Nobody came to reassure her. Nobody came to forgive her.
When she could cry no more, when she had no more strength within her, Elizabeth lay on the ground, the fresh scent of the earth invading her nostrils. A worm glistened obscenely just inside her vision, her eyes followed its path. A shudder went through her.
Elizabeth, said a far off voice, this isn't what you gave it up for. This can't be the source of your sacrifice.
Forcibly, she made her limbs move, made herself stand up, pulled herself from his grave. This was not where she belonged, not where she needed to be. She had lost so much, but she still had some. Her feet, it seemed, were made of cement, but she dragged them forward, one by one.
Her hand was heavy and reluctant as she raised it to ring the bell, but she got through the gesture. The seconds ticked by excruciatingly slowly, stretched out to cruel proportions. Then the door opened. It hadn't occurred to her just how she might have looked after digging in the dirt, or how exhausted she'd have to be, until the brunette in front of her nearly cried out in shock. Her hand in front of her mouth.
"Elizabeth! Oh my god! We all thought… I thought…! It's been months! Come in, come in!"
Elizabeth couldn't help it, the concern in this woman's voice made her want to weep again. She fell forward and nearly collapsed into the waiting arms. It felt good, strange, but good to have someone from her world, her reality, care for her again. She could barely force out one word before the tears came again.
"Jenny!"
After Jenny had drawn her a long, hot bath, given her hot tea and warm, clean clothes, Elizabeth felt more at home. The story came out, the last few months, every last detail. Well, almost all. As she spoke it, the words seemed to take on an ethereal quality and she found herself feeling like Alice, wondering if she had really been there at all.
In that world where the dead were living and the living were dead, where so many things were different and yet so similar. Yet, no matter how much she wanted to dismiss it, Elizabeth could not forget that world, not just because it held the most precious thing she owned, but because she'd made friends there.
Strange, as she sat there, her feet warming by Jenny's heater, her hands cupped around Jenny's mug, the warmth oozing out of Jenny's tea, listening to Jenny's words, Elizabeth felt herself already referring to them as past, as gone. As no longer. And that hurt just a little.
"I can't stay here, Jenny." She watched the woman carefully. "If I can just spend the night and call Xander in LA tomorrow, please."
"Of course. Anything." Jenny looked down into her lap, her long thin fingers twisting in to each other. "Why… why can't you stay? Just a little bit longer. Let yourself recover."
Elizabeth didn't answer the question, she kept watching Jenny.
"You know, in that world, he was yours, just for a while."
Jenny seemed to rock, jerking suddenly, but quickly covered it. Elizabeth didn't stop, she had no idea what she was doing, where she was going with all of this. All of a sudden she realized that she hadn't come here because she trusted Jenny, but because it had been the only place left open to her.
"You and Rupert, but it didn't last. Want to know why?"
She lifted the cup to her lips and blew on the hot liquid, her eyes never leaving the other woman. It was almost as if she eased her pain by causing it in Jenny.
"No, uh… I…"
"Oh, come on, Jenny, surely you have some idea. What could, possibly, have made sweet little Rupert mad at you?"
"Elizabeth, please." Jenny finally looked up. "It had nothing to do with our lives here, anymore. After I came…"
"Angel was dead. Why didn't you ever tell us who you were, Jana? Were you ever going to tell us? What if he'd chosen you? What if he'd been with you? Would you ever have told him? Would you have lied to him all this time?"
Her words were less cold now, as much as they were trembling and hiccuped with pain. Jenny looked at her sadly, her eyes taking in the shivering, exhausted woman. She could feel the agony radiate off Elizabeth.
"He loved you, you know, in that world. He loved you and Angel killed you for it. You lied to us all, kept the truth hidden and Angelus returned, he killed you and made us all suffer."
"Elizabeth, I…" She wanted to stop Elizabeth's near hysterical ranting.
"Don't you get it? You were trying to make it up to Rupert, trying to make it all better, and Angel killed you because of me, because of her. Even in other worlds I'm responsible for pain and suffering and death! I can't do it, Jenny, I can't take the guilt for both worlds!"
"Then don't."
Once more that night, Jenny found herself with her arms around Elizabeth, cradling the sobbing woman. She could feel the last vestiges of magic hum over the skin, feel the threads of the people she had just left. Most of all, Jenny could feel an enormous emptiness, the hollowness that ate at Elizabeth.
It made her want to cry too.
She ran her hands though Elizabeth's hair, combing the still damp curls that had formed. Gone was the dark stain of the dye, Jenny had not talked to her in that time, when Elizabeth had dyed it, but she had seen. She had never stopped watching out for them, especially towards the end. What remained was the blonde, with several darker streaks, as if the girl had tried to capture what she once was, but couldn't quite go back all the way.
"Let it out, Honey, let it all out." She felt Elizabeth melt into the comfort, knowing that if anybody else had been on hand, Jenny would be cast away, rejected. She was not a friend, she was just there. It didn't matter.
Elizabeth cried until her eyes ached, until she could no longer force them open and her muscles were too heavy to work properly. She didn't know how she could, with all the lingering hostilities she harbored, but she fell asleep in Jenny's arms.
* * * *
When she woke up, she found deep, thick quilts wrapped around her like a cocoon. Her head nestled into a soft pillow. This was, she noted as she looked around, Jenny's room. Jenny must have slept on the sofa. She felt slightly guilty for putting her out like that.
Her clothes lay by the side of the bed, cleaned and folded, accompanied by a change of wardrobe and some other necessary things. Atonement, she thought as she stood up and stretched, was a personal thing. There was no way to predict it.
This eternal mothering, the sometimes unwelcome watchfulness of Jenny, was the woman's own way of apology. Elizabeth thought back to the not so recent history, Jenny's eagerness to please, and knew she'd been trying to apologize for wrongs never admitted. There was nothing that Elizabeth could say or do to cease Jenny's self administered punishment, she knew this, knew that it was a personal thing, that it would have to be Jenny who forgave herself.
Elizabeth, in opposition to her statements the night before, did not blame Jenny at all. It had been an outlet, nothing more, a selfish outlet, a cruel venting of emotion, but somewhere she knew that Jenny understood.
Her own atonement, she knew, would be harsher and would never end. It began with the loss of all she held dear, the knowledge of what had been and her own guilt in the process, and ended with the loss of her second and last child.
She didn't deserve Chloe, not in her mind. That was her punishment. She had ripped the baby from her life and would forever tell herself that. Would forever push to the surface the image of Chloe, her child, never would she allow herself the peace and comfort of forgetting.
* * * *
Downstairs, waiting for the kettle to boil, Jenny heard the sound of the shower, heard the violent tears that lay underneath. There was nothing she could do, it ached strangely, she'd come to see Elizabeth as a friend. And more.
She was almost like a daughter, though Elizabeth would protest vehemently against that thought, willful and in so much need of guidance and mothering. Since she had stepped aside, bowing in recognition to what was inevitable, Jenny had let go of all her competitiveness, all her possessiveness over Rupert.
That was something that would never have come to pass.
Elizabeth had hurt deeply over the loss of her mother and though she never admitted it, had sometimes come to Jenny when she needed to, confiding in Jenny where she couldn't to Rupert. Though once the need for an ear had passed, Jenny had been pushed to the side again.
Years ago, she flinched with the memory, they had taken her own baby girl away. She'd be twenty now, Jenny knew, and along the years, on and around the same date, she had imagined what her little girl would be like.
Her phantom baby had teethed, learned to crawl, to walk, to speak with a childish lisp, in her mind. What had she been like at four years of age? At ten? Something in her liked to imagine, needed to, craved to think that her daughter had grown up like Elizabeth.
Strong, independent, intelligent and beautiful. When Elizabeth asked for help, Jenny was only happy to please. When Elizabeth turned away, Jenny felt the loss like the mother of any teenage daughter. She knew she had only been inviting the pain, welcoming it.
She understood Elizabeth's pain, but she would never reveal how much.
* * * *
"Are you nearly done? I have to be there in an hour, you know."
He sighed at the comment, but smiled to himself at the sound of her voice. They were finally starting to live again, the horrors of the previous year, and the last few months especially, had begun to lose their edge. They still hurt, but the sharp serrated blades of memory were starting to dull.
"Just a minute."
He fingered the spine of one of the books, letting the scent of dust enter his nostrils, welcoming the flash of memory that came to him. The old library, the gang as it used to be, happy, together. Closing his eyes, he drifted in his mind.
The telephone rang.
"You expecting a call?"
"No." She looked at him, pointedly tapping her watch. "But you're the one who handed out those cards."
He reached over and bought the receiver to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Xander?"
He nearly dropped the phone, so deep was the shock that overcame him at the sound of that hesitant, nervous voice. He would never forget it, but he had thought that he'd never hear it again. Had finally mourned and moved on. Cordelia must have sensed something and stepped towards him.
"What's wrong? Who is it?"
Xander could only whisper one word.
"Elizabeth?"
* * * *
Jenny stood in the door to the bathroom, her arms crossed over her abdomen, hugging herself. She watched as Elizabeth frantically scrubbed her hands in the sink. The scent of soap hung thick in the air and the sound of water echoed through the pipes. Jenny watched the progress of soap being dragged across reddened skin.
"They'll be here soon, then?"
"Uh huh." Elizabeth's voice was preoccupied.
"You're welcome to stay." It was almost a plea.
"I can't, not really."
Elizabeth turned off the tap and grabbed the nearby towel, she began to wring her hands through it, roughly scraping the cloth over her hands, twisting it. She didn't meet Jenny's eyes.
"It's not over, not really." Jenny paused, the fact that Elizabeth wouldn't meet her eyes had not escaped her notice. "You'll just be running again. I know he's…"
"Jenny?" Elizabeth put the towel down and stared at her hands. "I'm only going to say this once. Ethan is gone and he won't be back." She looked up and finally met Jenny's eyes, it made the older woman's blood run cold. "It is over."
Elizabeth's eyes flickered to her hands once more. She turned back to the sink and gave the hot tap a vicious twist.
* * * *
"How you goin' there, Sweetie?"
"Ugh, just fine."
Cordy smiled rather falsely, but her eyes were warm. She almost enjoyed the slight nausea of the car ride. Several hours on the road meant several stops along the way and a lot of discomfort. Xander couldn't help but hover over her with an almost obsessive quality. It made her smile. She had never been one to complain about attention.
"Where do you think she's been?"
Xander looked over from the wheel. His face seemed a mixture of excitement and concern. A furrow nestled into his brow.
"I don't know, we just have to be patient and let her tell us."
"Did she…" Cordy stopped, staring out at the road ahead, then breathed in. "Did she say anything about…?"
Xander swept a quick glance over his new wife, the way her hand rested protectively over her growing belly, the glow in her cheeks that always made him feel warm and the agony that mirrored in her eyes as she considered the pain Elizabeth must have gone through. He wanted to smile, just to reassure her, but he just couldn't summon enough energy.
"No."
* * * *
She stood once more in front of the grave. This time to say her final goodbye. Elizabeth had said so many in the past twenty four hours that she wondered if she'd ever heal. She had gone to visit her son's grave, the impossibly tiny little mound of earth, silently adding Chloe to the gravestone. Willow's grave, Joyce's grave, Oz's grave, she had quietly and methodically tended them all.
Her morning had been spent pulling each and every weed from the ground, cutting the grass with sharp clippers borrowed from Jenny, scrubbing the headstones so hard it was almost like she was scrubbing her guilt away.
Would he have understood, she wondered as she let her eyes roam over the engraved letters, could she have come back here and told him and expected his understanding? He had wanted Chloe, wanted her with a hunger so deep that it hurt her to think about.
She had wanted Chloe. And she still did, ached for her. She could close her eyes and immediately the sharp smell of baby powder filled her nostrils, the sound of a gurgle. Elizabeth opened her eyes. The sun caught in the remaining drops of water and suds on the headstones. They sparkled.
It didn't matter in the end, whether he would have understood, whether he approved, because he had left them. It wasn't his fault, she knew, but he was still gone. Elizabeth had done what she needed to do.
Now it was time to make amends the only way she knew how. Fighting the good fight. She honestly tried to keep the irony out of her thoughts, tried to stop her mind from sounding bitter even to herself. She tried. Xander and Cordy would arrive soon.
She wondered exactly how fighting evil in LA would go as she walked away from the graves, a slight ache in her belly.
* * * *
Darling, give me your absence tonight,
Take the shade from the canvass and leave me the white,
Let me sink in the silence that echoes inside,
And don't bother leaving the light on,
'Cause I suddenly feel like a different person,
From the roots of my soul come a gentle coercion,
And I ran my hand over a strange inversion,
A vacancy that just does not belong,
The child is gone.
Honey, help me out of this mess,
I'm a stranger to myself,
But don't reach for me, I'm too far away,
I don't want to talk, 'cause there's nothing left to say,
So my darling, give me your absence tonight,
Take all of your sympathy and leave it outside,
'Cause there's no kind of lovin' that can make this alright,
I'm trying to find a place I belong,
And I suddenly feel like a different person,
From the roots of my soul come a gentle coercion,
And I ran my hand over a strange inversion,
As the darkness turned into the dawn,
The child is gone.
The child is gone.
- Fiona Apple, "The Child is Gone".