Title: When I Lay Me Down to Sleep (part 20/?)
Author: Neena (varscona_pal@yahoo.ca)
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The characters and Buffyverse belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, etc. This little ficlet (or novella, as it turns out) is for fun only.
Feedback: Pretty please? I’m an addict!

Xander was now on intimate terms with the expression ‘seeing red’. In his case, however, it was blood, not anger that was rose-tinting his world.

Stupid! He silently berated himself. He’d counted hippopotamuses until he’d reached ten of them, and the bombs hadn’t gone off. So of course he had to peek his head out from behind his shelter to see what was wrong. And, naturally, that’s when the first bomb blew. A shard of glass from the resulting debris flew right at him and embedded itself in his left eyebrow.

At least he hadn’t lost an eye, he thought. He couldn’t think of anything worse than losing an eye…except, perhaps, losing both eyes. Reading King Lear in class had given him nightmares for weeks.

He heard, rather than saw, Cordelia running towards him, and he did his best to look calm and collected despite the vast amount of blood pouring from the wound.

“Xander! What happened to your face?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said.

“I hope not, ‘cause you look horrible,” she replied. “What did you do, watch the bombs go off?”

“Of course I didn’t—that would just be stupid,” said Xander with a scoffing laugh. “It must have been a ricochet.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked, and he could hear the genuine worry in her voice.

“I’ll be fine. But I think it’s safe to say you’re driving.”

As Ethan Rayne rummaged around in the backseat for his book of spells, Wesley got out of the car and headed for the stalled Citroën.

Giles was jogging towards him, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw who it was who’d come to his rescue. Good, thought Wesley, that meant they still had the element of surprise.

Giles stood poised to attack as Wesley approached. He felt energised, buzzing with kinetic energy like a coiled spring straining to be released. It was clear what he had to do—no decision had ever been easier to make. This man was a threat to his son. He must eliminate the threat.

“Mr. Giles, I’ve come to bring you home,” said Wesley, speaking to him like he was trying to soothe a rabid dog. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Giles laughed harshly: “I’m afraid I can’t make the same promise. Leave now—go back home and forget any of this happened or by tomorrow you’ll be food for the local carrion.” His smile was wickedly playful as he bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, itching for the fight.

Wesley swallowed hard around the lump of fear in his throat. He did not like his odds in this battle, but he needed to buy Ethan enough time to perform the spell.

“I’m not going anywhere without Buffy,” said Wesley with more conviction than he felt.

“Then I guess that means you’re not going anywhere,” answered Giles.

Before Wesley even had a chance to flinch, Giles’ fist slammed into his jaw, snapping his head back with enough force to cause whiplash. Wesley blinked a few times to clear his vision and barely avoided another blow to the skull.

With Giles off-balance from the force of the swing, Wesley took the advantage and rammed his elbow into the older man’s back. Giles went down hard, but twisted as he fell so that his foot collided with Wesley’s stomach.

Wesley wheezed, the wind temporarily knocked out of him from the unexpected kick. But Giles was already on his feet and coming at him.

“Wait!” Wesley gasped. “You wouldn’t hit a man in glasses, would you?”

“No, I suppose you’ve got a point…” he said, and took off his glasses, placing them in his coat pocket. “I wouldn’t want to break them—I don’t have another pair at the moment.” He threw another punch at Wesley, but this time Wesley deflected it and they grappled face to face for a while, fighting to gain the upper hand. At this close range, Wesley could distinctly make out flecks of luminescent purple in Giles’ eyes.

He shouldn’t have let himself get distracted. Giles used the moment’s lapse to break free of Wesley’s grip and slam his joined fists into the other man’s gut. As Wesley doubled over, Giles gave him a sweeping boot to the head, snapping the younger Watcher’s glasses.

“Should have taken them off when you had the chance,” Giles taunted him. “C’mon, get up. It wouldn’t be fair to kick a man when he’s down. Not twice, at any rate.”

Wesley raised himself up on one arm and looked up at his adversary with a hatred borne of humiliation. All his life he’d been bullied. He’d been a walking target as a child, and even when he’d been made Head Boy, he never gained the respect of his peers. Hell, even his own father made it known on numerous occasions that he was nothing but a disappointment. But this was his calling: protect the Slayer at any cost—and that’s precisely what he intended to do.

He looked up at Giles’ mocking, scornful face and suddenly he was a child again—just a spotty, gangly kid in short pants facing off with the school bully. He stood up on wobbly legs and tossed his mangled glassed to the ground. And, just as he had done when he was a child, he braced himself for a thorough pummelling.

But something had caught Giles’ attention. A blur of movement in the darkness had alerted him to a new danger, and whatever it was, it was moving quickly in the direction of the Citroën where Buffy and the baby were sleeping.

“I’m ready…if you’re prepared to fight like a gentleman,” said Wesley, attempting to draw Giles’ attention away from Ethan’s activities.

“If you haven’t noticed by now, I don’t put a lot of stock in fighting like a gentleman.” With a grunt of effort, Giles brought his foot up into Wesley’s groin with considerable force. Wesley dropped hard to the ground, curling himself into a tight ball and vomiting as he dealt with a pain so acute he nearly lost his mind.

With Wesley out for the count, Giles turned his attention to the new threat. The shadowy figure had already reached Giles’ car and was opening the door. Giles couldn’t reach them in time. The man had wrested his son out of his sleeping fiancée’s grasp and was making a mad dash down the highway before Giles had even reached the car.

Buffy was in a state of near-panic when he got to her. She’d been so exhausted she hadn’t even heard the car door opening. She’d let her guard down, and it had cost her her child. Tears erupted in her eyes and she began wailing uncontrollably.

Giles didn’t have time to console her, and it was clear she was in no shape to fight alongside him, so he took off down the highway after the kidnapper.

A short way down the road the man had stopped along the shoulder and had lain the screaming newborn down on the gravel. Giles was so focused on the baby that he didn’t even look at the man. He got within fifteen feet of them before slamming into an invisible barrier that knocked him off his feet.

“Really. Ripper—did you think I’d just stand here and let you tear me to shreds? Credit me with some intelligence.” Ethan dug through the bag he was carrying and pulled out a bottle of white sand and the book of spells.

Giles was outraged to the point where instinct took over from logic, and he flung himself at the barrier again.

“Please stop doing that, you’ll only knock yourself unconscious,” said Ethan. Then he thought about it for a second: “What the hell—knock yourself out. Just keep it down, will you? I’m trying to concentrate.” The sorcerer had never been so thankful for his skills in magick than he was at that moment. He’d never seen his old friend so furious—his face was so contorted with rage he no longer looked human.

Only after another fruitless attempt at breaking through the barrier using brute force did Giles calm down enough to think clearly. His Chaos-worshipping nemesis might be a more formidable sorcerer, but Giles was no slouch himself. Ethan had taught him well, and although he might be a bit rusty, he still knew a few tricks. He just needed to focus his attention long enough to summon the right words…

Ethan had already drawn his circle of white sand on the ground around the maddeningly squalling infant and was starting to read out the spell that would send the unholy creature into a reality more suited to it. But Giles, too, was casting a spell, and it was impossible to guess who would finish first. If Giles managed to collapse the barrier before Ethan could finish the spell, he knew there would be no mercy.

Giles’ face broke into an evil grin as the last of the odd, mystic words tumbled from his lips. There was a brief flash, like someone with an enormous camera had snapped a picture. Ethan blinked at him in utter horror, but kept reciting his spell.

Giles took one step past where the barrier had been just seconds before, and opened his mouth to place a rather nasty curse on his good pal Ethan Rayne. But he never got the chance. He was blindsided by a forceful punch to the head that laid him out cold.

Wesley stood hunched over the older Watcher, rubbing his mashed knuckles. He was pretty sure he’d broken a finger…but damn, it felt good.

Ethan was just finishing the spell when an incensed Slayer rushed at them from out of the darkness. Her wild yells made the hairs on the back of Wesley’s neck stand on end—he’d never heard anything more frightening in his life.

She ran headlong into Wesley, knocking him to the ground. He held onto her tightly, and they rolled on the gravely shoulder. Buffy scrabbled to get up digging her nails into the rocky ground, trying to reach her baby—but it was too late. The spell had been cast, and the dirt and gravel inside the circle of white sand began to whip around in a mini-cyclone around the baby. When the artificial wind settled, the demon was gone.

Buffy shrieked inconsolably and collapsed, unconscious, next to Giles by the side of the road. Wesley knelt beside her in the ensuing silence and checked her pulse. It was nice and strong. He breathed a sigh of relief—the bonds had been broken and she’d survived. He could only hope that her time spent under the influence of the Preot hadn’t hurt her in other, less visible, ways.

Wesley shifted enough to check Giles’ pulse. He noted with a touch of satisfaction that his cheekbone was already swelling where he’d punched him. Otherwise, he seemed to be all right.

“Is he okay?” asked Ethan.

Wesley looked up at the man and raised an eyebrow. No sarcasm? No wry remark or put-down? For a brief moment Wesley saw past the hardened façade to a frightened, lonely man who was genuinely concerned for someone who’d once been a friend.

“He’ll be fine,” Wesley reassured him.

“Thanks to that insufferably thick skull of his,” Ethan quipped, his veneer firmly in place once more. “You throw quite a wallop. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Yes…well…I think ‘Ripper’ got in a few more punches than I did,” Wesley said, and slowly got to his feet, favouring all the bits of him that were tender or downright painful.

“Yeah, I saw you take one for the cause. Frankly, I’m amazed it didn’t kill you.”

“Believe me, at the time I wished it had,” replied Wesley.

“Bloody heroic of you to take him on after that,” said Ethan.

“It was, wasn’t it,” Wesley said with a little smile of pride. “C’mon…let’s get these two in the car. We’ve got a family to reunite.”

Buffy woke up and knew instinctively that she was in a hospital even before she opened her eyes. There was the sound of busy scurrying and beeping machinery in the background, and the air was astringent with the smell of ammonia. In her twilight state of consciousness it all seemed reassuringly familiar, and for a moment she felt safe and carefree, like the eighteen-year-old girl she was. Then memories of the last few months crashed down on her.

She could actually feel the blood draining from her face, and black spots appeared at the edges of her vision, threatening to send her back to the realm of the unconscious. It was too much—the way she’d treated her mom and her friends; the things she had done to Giles…

And the baby!

Buffy gasped, her hands clasped over her mouth as her wide eyes glassed over with tears. Their baby! She’d abandoned their baby!

Great sobs shook her—soul shattering sobs of grief and guilt. There was no pain on earth that could compare with the guilt she was feeling, and she’d felt more than her share of pain.

There was a soft tap at her door and it opened a crack. Buffy’s mother peeked through the door and came in when she saw her daughter was awake and in distress. She rushed over to her, and Buffy held out her arms for a hug. Joyce held her tightly, absorbing the pain and tears the way only a mother could. Soon both of them were crying, sniffling and clutching at each other until there were no more tears left to shed. And with a last shuddering sigh, they pulled away from each other, both of them making a grab for the tissues on the nightstand. Joyce reached it first and plucked some out of the box for Buffy before taking a handful for herself.

Wiping at her red, puffy eyes, Buffy said; “I’ve done some horrible things, Mom…I did something so horrible…” her voice cracked and fresh tears sprung up from some untapped source.

“Shhh…Sweetie,” said her mother, stroking her hair gently. “It’s all over now. The demon’s gone, and you’re going to be fine.”

“But…the baby…” said Buffy, her throat burning and raw with emotion.

“…is just fine,” Joyce reassured her, holding eye contact with her until the meaning of her words sank in.

“He’s fine?” she squeaked.

“It’s a she, and yes, she’s fine,” said her mom. “Willow!” she called over her shoulder. The door nudged open wide enough for Willow to peek in. She smiled broadly and slipped into the room, her arms full.

“There’s someone here who’d really like to meet you,” said Willow as she approached the bed.

Buffy’s eyes lit up—the relief she felt was so strong it made her dizzy. She held out her arms, well aware that she was grinning from ear to ear and having that grin mirrored in her mother’s and Willow’s faces. Willow gently placed the baby into Buffy’s waiting arms and stood back.

“But…how?” asked Buffy, when she had regained the power of speech.

“We’ve been spying on you and Giles since you left Sunnydale. When I saw you leave the cabin with only one baby, I went in after her. But don’t worry; the doctors say she’s fine. She’s a little on the small side, but she’s strong—just like her mother,” said Willow.

Buffy dropped her grateful gaze down to her daughter, whose tiny face was bunched up, her little red lips were puckered and making little sucking motions. Buffy placed her on her lap and unwrapped the blanket, marvelling at the miniature perfection she uncovered—ten dainty little fingers and ten perfect little toes. The baby’s chin started shaking in the chilly air, so Buffy wrapped her up again and snuggled her close to her chest.

Would you like to be alone for a while?” asked Joyce.

Buffy was about to nod yes, and then realized that she didn’t want to be alone—there was someone who needed to be there with her.

“Where’s Giles?” she asked. “Has he seen the baby?”

“Not yet,” her mother answered. “He’s down in Emergency with Mr. Wyndam-Pryce and Xander.”

“Xander?” asked Buffy. She could understand why Giles and Wesley might need a few stitches after the fight they’d had, but what was Xander doing there?

“It’s nothing serious,” Willow reassured her earnestly. “He just got hit with a bit of debris when he blew up City Hall.”

“Blew up City Hall?” asked Buffy, thinking she must have heard her wrong.

“Yep. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” Willow smiled at the thought.

“So it would seem,” said Buffy.

TBC...
AUTHOR'S PAGE