A/N: Okay, so for those of you who also read Forgotten Day Revealed, I'm sorry this chapter update is longer than that one's. I had hand rewritten most of this just after I got done with the timeline of this story and finished it, like the last paragraph, before I started on chapter six for F.D.R. so that is why it may seem more thought out, I started it before with its story very fresh in my head.
As for updating, it may take me a little while after this chapter. I have been neglecting my other category fan fictions. So I need to update a few of those, at least, before I can continue this story. I will update again as soon as I can, but please bear with me as I appease my other fans.
You Know You Love Me,
XOXO,
Alyss
Chapter Six
Buffy sighed as she faced her front door where three vampires stood outside waiting for an invitation she didn't need to give.
"You really had to make me come out here for no reason?" She was beyond annoyed. She knew of Drusilla's gifts; the vampiress should know of the enchantment Buffy had placed upon the house shortly after she learned her magickal inheritance. "I will not invite you into my magickally enhanced home. Nor do I need to. Drusilla, will you please your sire and childe what I mean?"
The vampiress giggled and entered the home, no invite needed. "How…?" Angel started before fading off and he and Spike entered the home. Buffy at their confusion, finding it a nice change of pace.
"I've enchanted the house shortly after moving into it," she explained while leading them to the back living area where the thirty-eight others waited for them.
"Okay, Buff," Xander began wanting this question answered first, "we're all here now. Can you please explain what the hell Dru over there means by saying she killed your daughter and why she would call you 'Mummy'?"
"She calls me that, Xander," she began, starting with the less complicated question, "because of the feeling her sire and I share for one another. She views him as her father, and therefore me as her mother, at least she has since Nadya cursed her with her human soul." She hesitated, trying to figure out how to explain the rest. "And she means exactly what she says. She killed my daughter," she paused, moving to sit by Oz and taking his hand, squeezing it, before continuing, "our daughter."
Angel was on the move before his mind had fully processed what he was going to do, but before he could reach Oz, he was up against the wall, his childe's hand on his throat restraining him.
"Bad Daddy," the vampiress told him, her voice reproachful. "Mommy doesn't allow violence in her home."
"You're right Dru, I don't" Buffy said gently to Drusilla as she moved to stand beside the pair and placed a hand on her arm. "I can take it from here. Let him go." When she didn't move, Buffy nodded towards Spike.
"Come on, luv," he said, wanting to understand this particular story as much as everyone else. "We both know the Slayer can handle Angelus at his worst." Seeing the sense in her mates words, Drusilla reluctantly but suddenly let go of her sire and moved to stand beside the blond vampire.
"You and Oz," Willow vegan, her surprise and hurt evident in her voice, "share a child?"
Buffy looked sorrowfully between Angel and Willow, hating herself for hurting the man she loves and her best friend in this way. "We shared a daughter, yes. And not a day in the past 11 months has gone by without me missing her.
"I think it might be best if I start at the beginning." Buffy looked around Buffy looked around her at the room full of people from both her past and her present.
"Yes," Giles began, speaking for the first time that night, while taking his glasses off and wiping them off with his handkerchief, "I think that would be best. Buffy nodded and sighed before taking a deep breath and started the story of the last three years of her life/
"I arrived in this town two days after I left L.A. and the first thing I did was enlist the local coven in my quest to hide myself from my past. They cloaked me from location spells, created a new life for me, and altered the perception of those around me, making them believe they were seeing Anna instead of me.
"Their spells awoke the power in my blood, which lead to me finding my family's Grimmoir. Within days, I learned enough control to summon the cross necklace and ring Angel had given me and the coven enchanted them, along with the one item I had brought with me, Angel's leather jacket, to do what it took several spells a day to do; keep me hidden.
"I fell into a deep depression shortly after I got settled here. I missed my friends, my mom, everyone that I loved really but I couldn't find the strength to go back. I wouldn't allow anyone to get to know me; I kept my distance hoping people would get the message. It didn't work.
"Oz was still on the west coast when I left and the moment my magick awoke, he felt a strong pulling sensation. That lead him to my front door just over month after I had gotten here. One month later, after one night we both agreed was a drunken mistake, I was pregnant."
"A pull lead him to you?" Cordy asked disbelief in her voice. "What kind of pull could lead a man, whom had never once showed a romantic interest in you, over a thousand miles to your front door?"
"An alpha's pull to its master is instantaneous." Oz's answer to the seer was sharp, ready to defend his master at a moment's notice. "The moment she became a pack master, I felt the pull to her."
"But you two haven't, you know since-" Willow began to ask before a lump rose in her throat.
"No, Will," Buffy supplied the young wicca. "Oz and I haven't been intimate since that night. An alpha is whatever their master needs them to be and I have never needed a lover.
"I gave birth to a 6lbs 8oz, 20.3in healthy baby girl on March 6th of 2001. We named her Arya Joyce Osbourne. She was perfect and as I held her for the first time, my depression became something I could fight, for her.
"On June 8, 2002, Drusilla came into town looking for the last remaining member of the gypsy clan that cursed her sire; the gypsy is a member of my coven, Nadya. However before Drusilla found Nadya, she had a vision showing her that my daughter would become too powerful a force of good. After finding them, she knocked Oz out and killed my 15 month old daughter and escaped the territory before my pack could follow her.
"Two days later, after Arya was buried, I gave Nadya a spell long thought lost to her clan; the spell to curse a vampire with their human soul."
"That's how, why her soul was returned to her," Angel said, his question coming out more like a statement, "because Dru killed your daughter?"
"Yes," she answered looking him straight in the eye. "Much like Angelus was cursed because he killed a beloved daughter of a gypsy clan; his childe was cursed because she killed a beloved daughter of a member of a powerful coven. It took Nadya just over two days to gather everything she needed for the curse and to cast the spell and I, knowing of Drusilla's past, knowing that when she was human she was a God fearing woman, felt no more vengeance was needed. It's not the popular theory. Many here still want vengeance for her crimes, the fact that she is under my protection is the only reason they haven't tried to kill her since your arrival.
"It's been 11 months, one week, and five days since we lost Arya. Oz, and just about everyone here, was afraid I would allow myself to slip back into depression but I knew I couldn't let myself; I had to prove them wrong. It was then that my visions started playing nonstop; past, present, and all possible futures for each decision we have or could have made playing without end. That's how I learned of the day that never was.
"And now you're all caught up. I've kept up my training, have a large collection of various weapons and patrol three nights a week, allowing the pack to take care of the patrolling on the other four days, not that there's normally any reason to patrol around here. It's as close to normal as I could get."
Buffy turned her head toward Angel and indicated for him to follow before heading out the door that lead to her back yard. His mind was racing around all the information she had shared with them; his heart aching for her now knowing that his childe had taken so much from her but his mind was in a jealous anger over the fact that Oz had fathered her child.
"Buffy, I'm so sorry," he began before she quickly cut him off.
"Don't apologize for her." Her voice was tense as was her body as she stopped in front of a gravestone. "And don't tell me you're sorry for my loss. I've heard it enough from times well-wishers around town; I don't need to hear it from you too."
Angel sighed as he came to a stop beside her and took a moment to take in her appearance. She was thinner than she was three years ago and not in a healthy way, she had dark circles under her eyes, and her normally sun kissed golden skin had grown pale; he could see what the years here had done to her, even in the dim light of the moon, what losing her child had done to her. Deciding not to comment on her unhealthy appearance, Angel turned his attention to the slab on grey stone in front of them as Buffy conjured a blood red rose and laid it on the stones smooth top.
"Is this where-" he began, finding it difficult to find the correct words. "Did you bury her here?"
Buffy shook her head as a small amused sigh escaped her chapped lips. "No, her ashes are buried at a local cemetery. I don't feel connected to her there so I conjured this as a memorial. She loved it back here."
Angel didn't know what to say. When Connor had been taken to Quor-Toth, he'd been able to hold onto the hope that he'd find some way to get him back safely, something he now owed Buffy for, but Buffy had truly lost her daughter; he couldn't imagine what strength of pain she must be feeling. So instead he took her hand and squeezed gently, offering whatever comfort he could give her.
Buffy offered him a small sad smile, as she turned to face him. Gently she took her free hand touched his face. "My heart never left you," she told him, her voice just above a whisper. "No matter how much time passes or our actions, it never will." She then turned and headed back into the house, from which he could hear Willow yelling at someone that he could only presume to be Oz.
