Disclaimer: This fanfic explores an idea I had when I first started watching the series over the past summer. Time and sanity willing, it is set to span from Season 1 to Season 5. Mostly follows the canon storyline, though hearty liberties will be taken.

Comments and criticism totally welcome.

Prologue: Garden Of

23 Years Ago

The labor was long and painful. Hours passed as the woman screamed on the hospital bed, blood staining the sheets beneath her. He watched where she couldn't see him, though he knew that she wasn't really seeing anything in her delirium anyway. The woman hissed and spat, spittle dribbling on her chin - not unlike the infant she was soon to be bringing into this world. Oh, the messy wonder of life.

Finally, with one great heave and another gushing spurt of womb-blood, it was over. The child was born, utterly silent. The man stood straighter as he watched the doctors about their work. He didn't trust them. Give him a good midwife any day of the week; those were some biddies that knew the value of guts and dirt and healthy superstition. But he had to rely on these too-clean men and women now, as they fussed, rushing back and forth. Every inch of his stolen body pulled tighter as the seconds passed without a sound from the newborn.

Just as he was about to step in, the cry broke the air: a shrieking, mewling sound that pinched his nerves just so. His lip curled at the noise, but as a palpable relief spread across the room, he found himself sharing the emotion. Still, it wasn't the time for rejoicing, at least not for the doctors: they had the mother to worry about, as she lay in a shallow pool of her own vital fluids.

The babe was whisked away to some other room, and he left standing there dumbly as they tried desperately to fix the woman's insides. A nurse turned to him, began to escort him out. "Mr. Hart, your wife has lost a lot of blood. We're going to need to operate. Please, let me take you to the waiting room."

Instead of chirping, "Whatever you say Doc!" he managed an appropriately somber nod, and let her lead him somewhere else. The human woman had done her job, at least. As long as the kid was okay, she was free to die tangled in a soppy mess of hospital blankets and birthing gore. Her usefulness had expired.

He wasn't waiting very long before another nurse took him to a hallway with windows lining one side. On the other side of the glass wall was a room full of human children, each dressed in assorted pastel wraps. Some twitched and some wailed and others slept. It didn't take him long to locate the important one, though. The little girl-child. He was more than a little disappointed to find that she was shrieking just like the rest of them, small face twisted in surprise and unhappiness. With a frown he looked on, hoping that some kind of grave mistake hadn't been made.

"Have a little faith," he said to himself, and turned as he heard another nurse coming towards him. She smiled broadly, but he saw the note of fear and sorrow there. Things must not have been going so well in the other room.

"Mr. Hart? Your wife is still unconscious, and we're doing everything we can." He nodded, already weary of pretending that he cared. "Your daughter, however, is very healthy and doing just fine." This, really, was all he needed to know. He nodded again, feigning shellshock and hoping the young woman would leave. It worked. As she turned to go, however, he called her back.

Without taking his eyes off of the squirming bundle all that way in the back, he said in a low voice: "Her name is Eden. That's what we wanted to name her." A lie, really, but it wasn't like the mother would care.

"Eden," the nurse repeated, throwing him another one of those nervous smiles. "Yes, that's very pretty. I'll make sure it's on her record."

"Thank you."

As the nurse turned and hurried back down the hallway, the screams of more pregnant women filled the air. The lone man by the nursery smiled very slowly, looking down on his fragile prize. "I'll be seeing you." The eyes reflected back in the glass burned yellow for the length of a heartbeat. Then he turned and walked down the busy halls of a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona with howls of agony following him out.