Christmas lights sprinkled red, white and green lit up the grounds of 1126 Cecily drive. Behind the stone and iron walls their merry light could barely be seen. This was where they had created their heaven in a bottle, a piece of land cornered on each side by thick walls of metal and stone. Massive walls that shut the world out while protecting the peace within, something these two had fought decades for. Tonight, this ordinary star filled night, was turning into something different. Tonight, within these walls, within this peace a scream destroyed the silence of their world. It was Buffy who screamed.
Sweat trickled over every inch of her skin as she smothered another grimace. The pain was nothing like she had ever felt; she thought she had experienced every conceivable kind. She had died, let go, killed, smothered, destroyed, vanquished and every other way she thought something could die, she had done. This was not the ending pain of death; it was of mercy and life. The sheets twisted in her hands and over her body. Her stomach, once a cute, firm pregnancy, was stretched and bloated with the child; this new human who was ready to take its first breath.
Lost to the contraction were the musings of names, features, smiles and first steps. Everything was in place, she was protected and he was beside her. Yet nothing mattered but the waves of unrelenting twists as the child began to emerge from her body. Everyone else in the room shivered with cold, but Buffy was moist and shinny from the sweat poring from her body. With chapped lips she grimaced at her lover, the father of her child, Angel.
Angel paced in the corner feeling utterly helpless. He had never felt more unready about anything in his life, and he had lived a long time. This was not his first or second child, but his third. Buffy's birth was the exact opposite of everything Darla had experienced with his son. Darla had been cold, dispatched and hysterical during her pain which left her feeding off their unborn child's emotions. Here it was a natural experience thousands of years in the making.
"Angel!" Buffy gasped.
To see the warrior sprawled on their bed looking around with pain filled eyes utterly helpless was disturbing. From the moment he had ever laid eyes on Buffy she had been a creature of agile unnatural strength. Now her thin limbs lay tangled in violet sheets, only moving with the pain. Her blond tresses were woven into a long rope down her back, but the movement and sweat had caused a few layers of curls to form around her glistening face.
Angel moved to her quickly, taking her spastic hand into his cold, clammy one. He looked towards the auburn Wicca at the end of the mounds of sheets.
"She is doing wonderful Angel," Willow smiled for a second.
"Can't you do something for her?" his words whispered of magic.
Willow shook her head quickly and set her lips in a thin line.
"Buffy had me promise there would be no magic in the birth of your child."
He nodded with a sigh; he had heard the exact same words from the slayer.
"The head is crowning," Willow's calm voice informed him.
Angel stared into Buffy's clearing eyes.
"Our baby is almost here" he whispered into her ear. A tear fell from his eye and onto her cheek.
Buffy smiled up at him. Rose colored candles lay scattered around the room providing the only light. The flickering gold danced across Buffy's face entrancing Angel. He moved closer to her warm body laying a kiss filled with his urgent need to have the pain over for her on her dried lips. Buffy sucked his strength in pouring all that pain into their passion. Within that kiss came the first cried of their child.
Stunned Angel looked towards Willow.
Tears slid down their friends flushed cheeks only to be broken by the beautiful smile on her lips. Then she spoke.
"She is here."
"Buffy, our daughter is here" he gasped.
Buffy's tears had cleared her eyes, which now reflected the fading candle light in them. Using Angel's arm for strength she pushed herself up from the humid sheets where she reached her exhausted arms for her child.
Willow brought their daughter wrapped in a cream blanket to the edge of the bed where they both got their first glimpse. A sight of innocent beauty. The ending finale of their love was tiny; Angel could not believe she was real. Her tiny glowing fingers lay delicately at the edges of the lace. For a bairn so small she screamed something deadly. Yet what entranced him about his new daughter were her eyes. They were Buffy's eyes, yet entirely his child's own. Outlined in gold the green and blue brightened with every blink. Angel wondered if Connor's eyes had ever been so full of light.
Willow whispered a blessing over parents and child before quietly leaving the room. She followed the trail of candles down the tiled steps to those waiting. Before she even entered the room she knew where each one would be. Xander would be sprawled in Angel's large cozy, several bags of this and that scattered around his snoring frame. Anya, the ever talking one, would be silent for once in her life. Tiny Fred sat reading a thick manuscript over sleeping Conner's head curled up against her husband, Gunn, who looked off into the unknown. Wesley would be the nearest to the door along with Giles and Dawn. In his arms he would hold Cordelia's child, Lucian. The child five years ago Cordelia had laid into Angel's arms to keep forever. She was the one missing, Cordelia, who had been with all of them ever since the beginning. They knew she watched on from a place they could not enter.
Entering the shadowed room she could feel their tension laced with hope. It was Wesley who saw her first. He rose quickly, with Lucien asleep in his arms.
"Buffy and Angel have a daughter," Willow said simply. Without hearing him step up behind her she turned to Giles.
"She is doing fine."
He responded by removing his glasses to wipe with the handkerchief permanently stored in his pocket. Willow could not ignore the tears in the watcher's eyes. His slayer had just given birth to a child, an awing fact in its own right, for no slayer had ever lived long enough or experienced love truly enough to give birth to a child. In each of their hearts they thanked someone for tonight.
Upstairs in the arms of her parents, Buffy and Angel named their child. They called their green eyed joy, Aveline Arella Summers, Hazel Angel.