Felipe was racing through the night on Valentino´s bare back. He hadn´t want to lose time by saddling the horse, and after all, it did make very little difference to him. But señora Sanchez had not been home. Her husband told him she had been called to the De la Cruz hacienda this morning, for young Maria was finally going to have her baby.

Felipe hadn´t wasted a second: he had jumped back on Valentino and set off at a neckbreaking speed to the De la Cruz hacienda. Their hacienda was situated some five miles northeast of the pueblo, and he grumbled under his breath about the time he was losing. The longer it took to get to señora Sanchez, the farther Diego and the lancers might be...

Upon arriving at the hacienda, he rode up all the way to the front door before jumping off his horse. He let the knocker come down heavily. And again. And again.

A servant came to open the door. "How may I help you?" he asked politely.

Too politely for a Felipe in a deadly hurry: he simply brushed the astonished servant aside and ran into the hacienda in search of señora Sanchez.

He had never been here before. The De la Cruz kept pretty much to themselves and had little intercourse with the other people in the territory; not even with the other caballeros. Fortunately, he ran into Don Pedro´s arms before the indignified dooropening servant caught up with him.

"Don Felipe! What are you doing here?"

He sounded tense, on the brink of becoming a grandfather, but Felipe hardly noticed. He wriggled out of Don Pedro´s grip and started signing that he needed to speak with señora Sanchez urgently. But because of the De la Cruz´ limited intercourse with even the De la Vega´s, Don Pedro was not well enough acquainted with Felipe´s sign language to be able to make sense of the young man´s urgent gestures.

"Slow down, Don Felipe. What is it?" he told him.

Felipe tried again. Oh, how he missed his voice in moments like this! But he still couldn´t make Don Pedro understand, and impatiently he made a writing motion.

"Yes, writing it down seems like a good idea." Don Pedro sighed. He took him to the library and gave him a piece of parchment and a quill, and motioned to the inkwell.

Felipe sat down and quickly scribbled: ´I need to speak to señora Sanchez! It´s urgent!´

Don Pedro shook his head. "She´s in with my daughter. You´ll have to wait till she´s done." He sighed in agony, worry about his daughter written in his every feature.

Felipe´s eyes narrowed and he felt a fury blossing up inside him. He picked up the quill, stabbed it into the inkwell again and wrote: ´Victoria´s babies are coming, too! It´s going very fast: her water broke and the contractions are strong and only a few minutes apart. Dr. Hernandez is out of town. Señora Sanchez has to come with me! Now!´

He stood up and handed the parchment to Don Pedro. He looked the older man sternly in the face as he read the words. And when Don Pedro looked up, he found himself looking into the eyes of a De la Vega. The De la Vega´s, a family whose power, wealth and influence were legendary in both California and in Spain. A family whose word carried weight throughout the entire Spanish empire. A family that could inspire anyone to obedience. Even demand it when they thought it necessary. And this young Don Felipe indeed did compel his obedience when it came to seeing señora Sanchez. So he slowly nodded. "Come along then," he said quietly, and led the way through a corridor towards Maria´s bedroom.

He knocked. A worried Doña Luisa came to the door, and he exchanged a few words with his wife. Meanwhile, Felipe heard a hairraising moaning and crying in the background, and he felt goosebumps creeping all over his body. Was having a baby really that bad?! Poor Victoria!

Finally, Doña Luisa went back in and señora Sanchez appeared. Immediately Felipe gestured that she had to come with him.

"What is it, Feli... Don Felipe?" she asked quietly.

Felipe started explaining, but then he snatched the piece of parchment out of Don Pedro´s hand and gave it to señora Sanchez to read.

She read it silently and then looked up into his urging eyes. "I see. But Don Felipe..." She led him a few meters down the corridor, to avoid Don Pedro overhearing her words. "Don Felipe," she continued gravely, "I can not possibly leave here now. I can´t! There is a young girl in there giving birth, but there are all kinds of complications. If I leave her now, she will die! And so will her baby."

But Felipe pointed at Victoria´s name at his paper. "And what about her then!?"

"Don Felipe," señora Sanchez took hold of his shoulders, "Doña Victoria will be allright. She is a strong and healthy young woman. And her children were both in a perfect position to be born the last time I saw her. Let nature run its course and she will be allright. Don Diego knows enough about medicine to be able to assist her. But I can´t leave here, at least not until Maria´s baby is born, or the young mother will die for sure. Doña Victoria will be allright."

Felipe looked at her in horror and despair. And señora Sanchez looked after him as he rushed off, back to the front door and outside. There was fear in her eyes. "She´ll have to be..."

xxxxx

Again, Felipe was flying through the dark desert on Valentino´s bare back. He was fuming. He´d probably lost an entire hour, and for nothing! Poor Victoria!

He shivered at the memory of young Maria´s desperate moaning and crying. Was Victoria going through something like that, too, at this very moment?! He didn´t dare to think of it too much. He´d just have to get help. And fast. Diego was his only hope now. But he might be hours away by now...

Orientating on the nightsky he chose a slightly southwestern direction. It led him past the pueblo, and past the hacienda. For a moment he deliberated whether he should go in and tell them that señora Sanchez would not be coming any time soon. But he decided against it; it would mean losing even more time. Don Alejandro would just have to hold the fort by himself a little longer.

So he passed the hacienda by about a mile, still riding as fast as he could, heading west, following the tracks the lancers had made earlier that evening.

xxxxx

Mendoza and his lancers turned around annoyed at the sound of a galloping horse. What fool was coming to disturb their strategy?

But Felipe reined in his horse and jumped off right in front of them. "Where´s Zorro?" he demanded.

"Behind those hills, taking in the situation," Mendoza answered. "But what are you doing here? Hey, ho! Stop!"

Felipe had bounced off around the hill immediately, and sergeant Mendoza had no choice but to go after him. Why, the boy might walk straight into the bandits!

"You stay here; I´ll go get the boy back," he grunted to his lancers before setting off after Felipe.

The rustling and puffing Zorro´s ears picked up a few moments later were definitely Mendoza´s. But when he looked around, it was Felipe who emerged from the shadows.

"Felipe? What are you doing here!" he hissed.

"Yes, that´s what I want to know, too!" Mendoza panted as he crawled up behind Felipe.

But Felipe had already started explaining. "The babies are coming! You have to come home! Now!! It´s going fast!"

"What?!" Zorro squeaked. For a moment he felt the world spinning around him, and he grabbed hold of Felipe´s shoulder to steady himself. There may be a first time for everything, but this was definitely not a good time to try out fainting. Fiercely he shook his head to try and get a hold of himself again.

But Felipe already continued: "Victoria needs you! Dr. Hernandez is out of town, and señora Sanchez is with Maria de la Cruz and says she can´t leave there or the girl will die! You will have to help Victoria delivering the children. But hurry!!"

Felipe´s signing had gone too fast for Mendoza to follow. Instead he looked at Zorro to find out what Felipe was so worried about. And his jaw dropped. Never before - either with Zorro being his adversary or his partner - never before had he seen plain fear in the masked man´s eyes. Fear was a word he had always presumed to be missing in Zorro´s vocabulary. Apparently he had been wrong.

He saw Zorro swallowing with difficulty. Two, three times. Then he jumped to his feet. "Sorry sergeant, I have to..." His eyes fell on the little white bundle down there by the camp-fire in the valley beneath him. Little Martina, wrestling with her ropes. If that was his own kid... He quickly made a decision: "I´ll get the child out right now. Then at least she will be safe. You´ll have to take care of the rest, Mendoza."

"But...!" Mendoza started to protest. But Zorro had already disappeared into the darkness around them, leaving it up to Felipe to explain the matter to the sergeant.

Supple as a tiger Zorro crawled and jumped closer to where the girl was lying, always keeping to the shadows. With a final, easy jump he landed next to her. The bandits still didn´t seem to notice, but the girl nearly cried out in fear seeing the masked black figure bending down over her. Zorro was just quick enough to put a hand over her mouth and whisper: "Ssh! Don´t be scared of me, brave one! It´s Zorro. I´ll get you out of here."

Quickly he cut her ropes and the girl looked up to him in admiration. "Zorro!" she whispered excited. True, Zorro didn´t show his face in town very often anymore these days. It wasn´t necessary now that Mendoza was the alcalde, for he was nice to the people. But even the youngest children in the pueblo knew that Zorro was a legendary hero, who could beat any vicious bandit and outsmart even the meanest alcalde! And here he was, right in front of her, saving her from those bandits who had taken her!

"Thank you, Zorro!" she whispered happily. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a wet kiss on the cheek. "You are the best!"

"Ssht!" he hushed her again.

But it was too late: the bandits had spotted them. "Quick! It´s Zorro!" one of them exclaimed just as Zorro lifted Martina into his arms. He put her down immediately and stepped in front of her. "Run!" he told her as he pointed in Mendoza´s direction, but the first bandit already pulled out a pistol and took aim.

But there was Felipe. As Zorro yanked the pistol out of the bandit´s hand with his whip, Felipe jumped down the low ridge where he and Mendoza were hiding, bounced over to the child and quickly pulled her to safety in the shadows. Zorro saw him flashing by, and he gave his son a grateful thought before concentrating on the bandits in front of him.

"I really do enjoy a good fight," he told them while passing out punches that left them sprawling on the ground. "But unfortunately I don´t have time for such sport tonight. Sorry, gentlemen! Adios!"

He jumped onto the ridge where Mendoza was watching. "They´re all yours, sergeant. And see to it that little Martina gets home, will you?"

Without waiting for an answer he dived into the darkness, and only a moment later the sergeant heard Toronado whickering and then taking off with flying hooves. And while Mendoza called for his men to tie up the four groggy kidnappers, Felipe appeared out of nowhere with Martina and left her without a word in Mendoza´s care, before taking off on his horse at top speed as well.

xxxxx

"Victoria? Father!" Zorro bursted in - very unusual - through the front door. He hadn´t even taken the time to tell Toronado to go to his stable; he hoped the horse would figure that out by himself.

Don Alejandro came rushing out of the bedroom. "Thank goodness, you´re here! Where is señora Sanchez?"

"I don´t know; Felipe said something about her not being able to make it. Where is Victoria? How is she?" he hurried.

"In the bedroom. I don´t know; she´s in a hell of a lot of pain, son."

Zorro ran for the bedroom and fell down on his knees by Victoria´s face. It was tearstained and twisted with pain, and he reached out to carefully push back a strand of her disheveled black hair. "Victoria..." His voice was croaky. But she heard him and opened up her eyes. The world of pain and agony in them made him gasp.

"Zorro..." was all she mumbled under her breath before she shriveled up in another wave of pain. Desperately she reached for his hand. He took it, and she squeezed. Hard. So hard that the tears sprung into his eyes.

´Madre de Dios, what terrible pain she must be going through!´ was the thought that shot through his brain. Was this normal? And here was he, and what could he do?!

But Victoria herself required his undivided attention now: she cried out and started panting, heavily, but than faster. "Baby... it´s coming...!" she forced out.

Zorro felt the blood draining from his face. "Now?" he squeaked. "You mean you have to push?!"

Her face told him the answer, and he swallowed hard. This was it: he was on the brink of becoming a father now... Oh help...!

xxxxx

When Felipe finally raced into the garden of the De la Vega hacienda, he and Valentino nearly bumped into a big black form. Obviously Toronado had found something more interesting than his stable: he was happily munching the famous De la Vega rosebushes.

Felipe shook his head at the horse in reproof. He could imagine Diego being in a hurry, but... Still, he, too, rushed inside first to hear if there was any news before taking care of the horses.

He found Don Alejandro nervously pacing the hall. And from the bedroom came fiery voices. Felipe raised his eyebrows. "Are they fighting?! Even now!?"

"I hate you!" they clearly heard Victoria crying out between pain and anger.

Don Alejandro heaved a sigh. "I don´t know, Felipe. It sure sounds like it," he added as they heard Diego raising his nervous but equally angry voice.

"It´s all your fault!" they heard Victoria again, panting and half crying. "If you hadn´t made love to me, I wouldn´t be..."

"My fault?!" Diego´s indignant words were clearly audible now. "What ´my fault´! You were the one who raped me, remember?!"

Don Alejandro´s eyes popped wide while they heard Victoria cry out in pain again. "Victoria...?? Raped Diego?!" he mouthed in disbelief.

Felipe nodded rather embarrassed. "At least that´s what Diego told me the first time. That she practically overpowered Zorro in order to... well, to make him give her a child."

Slowly Don Alejandro shook his head. "Well, who would have thought..." he mumbled. "The invincible Zorro being overpowered by one single lady! So simple a trap that the alcalde has never even bothered to try it!"

xxxxx

In the meantime the first one of the next De la Vega generation was getting close to being born in the delivery-room. Upon running into the room, Diego had only cast aside his hat; now that he was anxiously kneeling at the foot-end of the bed to help his child into the world, he had taken off his gloves and his belt with the sword as well, but for the rest he was still dressed as Zorro.

Victoria moaned and panted as she tried to push out the child with all her might. She didn´t have the breath, nor the inclination to be scolding Diego any longer. All she could think of now was for this baby to come out and bring this agony to an end.

Gently, Diego helped the little head to come out. He swallowed hard as his long fingers stroked it. "The head is out. You´re nearly there, Victoria!"

And there, with two more pushes, the little baby slithered into his hands.

For a moment, he couldn´t say a word. He just looked at the baby in his hands, his mind in awe. This was his own child he was holding! A child conceived out of Victoria and himself!

It was Victoria who broke the spell. Still panting heavily with the effort, she enquired quavery: "Diego? Is it allright?"

He tore his eyes off the little miracle in his hands to look at the mother of his child. "It´s a girl," was all he answered huskily.

"Can I see her? Hold her?" Victoria pleaded longingly.

He swallowed again. "I´ll have to cut the umbilical cord. And she has to breathe."

He looked around for something to cut the cord with. His eyes fell on the dagger he had gotten from his sabre-master Sir Edmund Kendall. He lay down his little daughter, picked up the dagger and held its blade in the flame of one of the candles to sterilize it. Then he bound the living cord and with his teeth in his lower lip he cut the bond between mother and daughter. Victoria gasped, but more importantly the little girl gasped for her first breath, too, and started crying. Diego put down the dagger, and with a lump in his throat he picked up their little daughter and handed her to an exhausted but beaming Victoria. But she did more than just receive the baby from his hands; she pulled him close as well.

"Our daughter, Diego."

He nodded, speechless, as he caressed her cheek.

But just as Victoria lifted up her head to kiss their newborn daughter, her face twisted in pain. She moaned. "Not again...!"

Quickly Diego laid the little child next to her, and only ten minutes later he received another little girl in his hands. The procedure with the dagger was repeated, and within a few minutes the dead beat but excited and happy Victoria had two little girls in her arms. Diego stood next to the bed, looking down at them, with all kinds of emotions running through his mind. Relief, happiness, fear, joy, pride, worry about the future... Now he hadn´t just Victoria to take care of; there were these two tiny little girls now, too! Was he going to be a good father? Would he be able to keep them from any harm? They were so small, so tiny... so vulnerable. Would he ever be able to trust the very man that one day would come to ask for either their hand in marriage? His daughters, his little girls... And as a sudden wave of love swept over him, he fell down on his knees and took two of those little shrimp-fists in his large hands.

Victoria reached for his cheek. "Thank you, Diego. For these wonderful daughters you´ve given me."

He silently took her hand and kissed the palm. "I should thank you instead."

Two brown eyes met two blue ones, and melted into each other.

"I love you, Diego," Victoria whispered. But then she giggled. "Or should I say: I love you, Zorro? These two really are children of the fox, aren´t they? They have been conceived by Zorro, and again it was Zorro who helped them into the world!"

Hurriedly Diego pulled off his mask. "Let´s just hope and pray they won´t follow in Zorro´s tracks. I wouldn´t have a single moment of peace if they did!"

xxxxx

Within a few weeks, Victoria was up and about again. They had hired a day-nurse to help her take care of little Elena and Annarita, but Victoria just loved to fuss around with the little girls herself, and she spent practically all her time with them. Diego, too, loved to hold them and take care of them, and Don Alejandro was simply infatuated with his two little granddaughters. Felipe however preferred to just look at them for now; he was eagerly awaiting the day they would be big enough to play with.

It was early February when Diego decided he wanted to have a picture of his family. He got the camera, the tripod and the flash from the cave, and Felipe helped him setting everything up. Elena and Annarita were dressed in pink lace, and Victoria and Felipe, too, put on their best clothes for the first De la Vega family picture.

Don Alejandro watched all the commotion with a grin, and asked: "Are you sure this is going to work, Diego?"

"Absolutely," his son answered. "I´ve done this before. I just hope the girls can manage to hold still long enough."

"And then you are going to have a picture? Just in one snap?" Don Alejandro could scarce believe it, but Diego nodded enthusiastically.

"I´ll have to develop it of course; that takes some time. But I was hoping to take such a picture once a year. For example on the girls´ birthday. And if we put up those pictures on the wall, we can just see them grow over time. I´m sure that if I could find a way to simplify the process, such family picture galleries would become a common feature in every family home. With walls filled with pictures on children and grandchildren."

Finally things were ready, and Diego started to pose Felipe, Victoria and the twins on the double seat in the library.

"Hey, shouldn´t you be in this family picture?" Victoria asked.

"Well, someone has to take it," he apologized.

"Oh, if it´s not too complicated..." Don Alejandro offered. "It might be fun to mock around with such fancy equipment." He chuckled, but Diego looked doubtful.

"Come on, Diego!" Victoria told him. "You´re the father of our family; you should be in the picture, too."

"Allright," Diego sighed, and explained to his father what to do. Then he sat down next to Victoria and took little Annarita out of her arms. Felipe leaned on the back of the seat, to have their heads quite close together.

"Fine." Don Alejandro grinned as he threw the black camera-cloth over his head. He felt like a young boy, secretly tinkering with some forbidden equipment. He held up the exploding flashlight high and ordered everyone to smile and hold still. So they sat and waited and smiled, and Diego was just about to ask what the problem was when the bright light exploded, causing the twins to a startled crying.

Don Alejandro´s head popped up from under the black cloth, with his hair tousled and with an excited grin on his face. "Diego! It worked! Now how do we take it out so we can see the picture?"

Quickly Diego laid back Annarita in her mother´s arms and darted forward. "Don´t touch anything, father! It has to be done in the dark, otherwise the picture will be ruined!"

He and Felipe carried the equipment back to the practically darkened cave. And late that evening, before going off to bed, he could present to his father the very first De la Vega family picture.

Don Alejandro was stunned. "But this is magic!" he stammered. "It´s really you! And Felipe, and Victoria, and the girls... Incredible! So clear, so faithful...!" He looked around the library. "This picture is going to have the place of honour in this house. I want every visitor to see it! My family, captured for posterity!"

Diego grinned. "Now if only I could develop some sort of time-delay for the actual taking of the picture. For you are part of this family, too, father. Perhaps I´ll start experimenting with that tomorrow."

But right now it was time to retire for the night, and with a happy sigh he relaxed in Victoria´s arms. "You know," he said pensively as his long fingers lovingly traced her jaw, "I´m almost scared to admit it, but I believe I´ve got everything I´ve ever wanted. I´ve got you, I´ve got two beautiful baby-girls, a great son, the best father in the universe... What did I ever do to deserve such happiness?"

Victoria smiled in the dark and stroked his hair. "Simply by being you, my love. And that´s what I love most about you. Simply you."