By Sauscony
E-mail: sauscony@forty-two.co.nz
Rating: R for a couple of rude words
Pairings: Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Giles (if you don't like either, stop reading now)
Summary: A prophecy says the Slayer's daughter will save the world. But's who's to be her father? And is there someone out to change things? (Set in the summer between seasons four and five.)
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are copyrighted ©20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon, Mutant Eniy, UPN and the WB, and are used without permission. No copyright infringment is intended.
"I don't have a daughter!" Buffy said flatly. "Not planning on having one any time soon." There was a moment's pause. "Or a son either," she clarified with a threatening look at Xander.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, did I say anything?"
"You were going to."
"Well, yes," Xander admitted. "But I won't now, I promise."
"Good." Buffy's tone was still dire.
"Perhaps we need to clarify what we know before jumping to conclusions." Giles' voice was the calm tone of reason in the storm.
"Um, Buffy?" Willow sounded a little nervous, but determined to say her piece. "Do you think there's any way you could be, um... Well... You know..."
"I know what?" Buffy gave her friend a puzzled look.
"You know..." Willow repeated, her face turning a shade of red to match her hair.
"Pregnant," Wesley offered helpfully into the silence that followed.
A silence that lasted only as long as it took for Buffy to catch her breath before exploding. "I so am not pregnant. Why the hell would I want to be pregnant?"
It was Becca, sucking in an instinctive breath at the outburst, who saw the look that crossed Riley's face at Buffy's abrupt denial. He looked hurt, like his girlfriend had crossed the room and slapped him in the face with all her Slayer's strength.
"Buffy, are you sure?" Giles asked gently. As Buffy opened her mouth to respond, he added quietly, "We need to check every possibility."
Buffy swallowed visibly, but managed to answer calmly. "I'm not pregnant." For a tiny instant, a wistful look crossed her face. "Can Slayers even have children?"
"I don't know," Giles answered honestly. "I've never seen a record of it happening."
"Most Slayers don't survive long enough for the question of reproduction to become an issue," Wesley added, giving Giles an almost apologetic look for mentioning the one thing a Watcher never wanted to discuss. The death of his or her Slayer. He was surprised and gratified by the older man's nod of appreciation. "Mr Giles and I could look into it for you if you wish, Buffy."
Giles nodded again, the gesture for Buffy this time, but he was watching Buffy's other ex-Watcher, reluctantly impressed by this new Wesley. Perhaps getting fired was a required step in turning a Watcher into a decent human being. If he was going to be honest it had probably been good for him, despite feeling desperately anchorless for much of this last year, and it looked like it had been good for Wesley as well. They could start a club for Buffy Summers' ex-Watchers who turned out not to be quite so stuffy after all.
He caught Buffy staring at him with a puzzled expression on his face and realised he'd been wool-gathering. "If you'd like us too, Buffy, then we will. You've broken so many rules already that I'd sure you can manage one more."
As he intended, she smiled and if the expression was a little tight about the edges he pretended not to notice.
"I'm not saying I want to rush out and be an unwed mother or anything, but it would be kind of nice to know I had the choice."
"Buffy, you'll never be an unwed mother."
Buffy blinked, looking up at Riley as if she had completely forgotten he was even in the room. He looked hurt, as if she'd just turned into some alien creature he didn't know.
"How can you think I wouldn't marry you?"
"I..." Buffy floundered, not having an answer, wondering when the conversation had moved from the hypothetical into the realm of reality.
"How can you think that?" Riley repeated. "Buffy, will - "
"What does the prophecy say?"
Completely out of habit, Becca interrupted before he could finish. Somehow she knew instinctively what he had been going to say and she cut off the question before it could be asked. Not daring to look at Riley, she focused on Wesley instead, remembering the way he had rushed to help her when she fell earlier and how, once she was safely settled on the couch, had refused to say anything further about his reason for coming to Sunnydale until Buffy was there to hear it too.
"The prophecy, yes." Wesley looked a little uncomfortable with all the attention back on him but he didn't falter under the collection of gazes, just took a breath to collect his thoughts and started telling them what he'd travelled a hundred miles to say.
"About a month ago Angel, ah, acquired a scroll of prophecy." Wesley glanced up at Giles, unable to hide completely the satisfaction in his tone. "The prophecies of Aberjian."
"You found the prophecies of Aberjian?!" Giles looked at the younger man with a new respect. "They were supposed to have been destroyed in the fire at the Basilica of Dianys in 1013."
Wesley thought of all that had gone into that discovery, feeling the ache of sore places still not healed, remembering the look of remembered pain that still sometimes crossed Cordelia's face, the continuing unsolved mystery of what evil Wolfram and Hart had raised to turn against the world.
"It's a long story," he said quietly. He thought of the promise the prophecies had made to Angel - the one he had been firmly forbidden to mention to the group of people gathered around him - and smiled just slightly. "Possibly a very long story."
"What did it say?" Xander demanded impatiently. "Apart from the bit about Buffy being a mom. Or maybe especially the bit about Buffy being a mom. Come on, stuffy British guy."
Wesley was surprised to find himself smiling slightly. Once, he would have been cut, flustered and embarrassed by Xander's words. Now, he simply recognised it as part of what made the young man himself. But he did understand better why Mr Giles had a patented glare with Xander's name on it.
"The scroll contains a number of prophecies. I've only started translating it as it is in some very obscure dialects. So far we've found a major one about Angel and the one about Buffy's daughter..."
"Angel's a vampire," Riley cut in harshly. "It's not like he and Buffy could..."
"Riley!" Buffy snapped before he could finish, shooting him a glare of if- looks-could-kill intensity.
He had the grace to look away, but he still repeated sullenly, "Angel's a vampire."
"Are you saying Buffy and Deadboy...?" Xander sounded like he was catching up on the conversation and couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Willow leaned over so she could put a hand over his mouth. "Just shut up, Xander," she hissed. "You're making it worse."
"But Angel..." he mumbled in self-defence.
"Would everybody just SHUT UP!" Buffy's shout cut across the room, reducing it to silence. "While I'm delighted everyone's so fascinated by the identity of the father of a daughter I'm not actually planning to have, it's none of your business."
"But Buffy..." Riley tried and she shot him a killing glare.
"Buffy's right," Giles said quietly. "I think we're all being a little premature here." He winced at his inadvertent choice of words but kept steadfastly on. "First we should let Wesley finish telling us what he found in the Aberjian prophecy."
"Yes, the Scroll." Wesley looked like he wished he had the Scroll in question in his hand so he could hide behind it. "The prophecy, ah, more like two separate but related prophecies, talk about the End of Days and the warriors that will come together to fight the rising Evil. One of these is described as the vampire with a soul..."
"Angel," Buffy whispered softly.
Wesley nodded. "And the other is called the Slayer's daughter." He looked up at Buffy, holding her gaze. "Since you are not a Slayer's daughter and your fate and Angel's seem to remain connected in some way, my best analysis is that the warrior being spoken of is your daughter."
"So some mouldy old scroll says I'm going to have a kid and she's going to what? Die trying to save the world from some big baddy?"
"No - " Wesley began, but Riley cut him off even as Buffy was opening her mouth to continue.
"Buffy's and my daughter isn't going to be risking her life. I'll make sure that never happens." He looked over at his girlfriend. "Buffy I promise, I'll make sure it never happens."
"How?" a new voice asked and he looked over to see Becca watching him with an uncannily perceptive gaze. "By pretending none of this stuff exists, even though you know it does."
"Nothing's going to happen to my daughter," he repeated stubbornly.
Buffy was starting to look trapped. "Giles?" she asked plaintively, and there were a hundred different questions in that single name.
Giles shook his head. "I don't know, Buffy. The Aberjian Prophecies are supposed to be pretty infallible, but you've beaten prophecy before." He slipped his glasses off and began automatically polishing the lenses with the bottom of his sweater. "If you are to have a daughter and if she is called to be a warrior for the Light, you know as well as I do how hard it is to turn away from such a Calling. The best I can offer is to promise she'll be prepared."
"My child is not going to be some kind of fated warrior," Riley repeated stubbornly. "Buffy..."
Buffy looked from him to Giles and back again. Finally, she slowly shook her head. "I don't want my daughter to have the kind of childhood I did. Or rather, that I missed out on. I can't let that happen. Not even if she's supposed to save the world."
She got to her feet and walked across to the door. Once she had it open, she turned back for a moment. "I'm sorry, Giles," she said quietly. And she walked out.
Riley followed her.
"That went well," Xander commented ironically into the silence that followed their departure.
"Mmm," Giles agreed, but his eyes were on Rebecca, who was staring at the door with a forlorn, almost tearful expression on her face.
Mama, is that what you did?
You sacrificed everything you are, just for me to have a normal childhood?
Well, guess what? You screwed up. Cause I didn't.
And you paid way, way, way too high a price for it.
This you I've just met, I've only known you for two days and already I love you. You're bright and alive and you kind of sparkle. Did you know the room seems to get a little bit lighter and warmer whenever you walk into it? And most of all, Mama you're happy.
Even with all the stuff you face, there's a core of strength and brightness in you that the mother I grew up with was lacking.
I don't want you to lose that.
And Mama, I think Daddy just talked you into making the wrong decision. I think this is where it all went wrong.
Because I don't know how to be a warrior. And if the world is depending on me then it's in a lot of trouble.
Because I don't want Daddy becoming cold and rigid and dictatorial like I remember.
And most of all, because I don't want you to stop laughing like you were last night. It was wonderful.
But I don't know how to fix it.
I don't know what to do.
The answer was in his grasp, just beyond the reach of his fingertips, but getting closer with each passing moment.
"Willow? Xander?" Giles' voice was quiet, not wanting to shake Becca out of her thoughts. "Would you mind going home now? I need to talk to Rebecca."
He got puzzled looks from both of them, but they exchanged a glance between themselves in silent communication and nodded.
"Okay, Giles," Willow agreed.
"Later, G-man," Xander added.
"I'll, ah, talk a walk," Wesley offered helpfully and Giles gave him a grateful nod.
And they let themselves out, leaving him alone with Becca not-Smith.
Giles touched her gently on the shoulder. "Becca?"
She looked up at him, blinking as if she'd just surfaced from a long time underwater.
He made sure his voice as gentle as his touch.
"I know who you are now. Rebecca Finn. Whatever went wrong, we'll fix it. We'll make sure your mother is happy. That's all I've ever wanted for her, even if it seems to be something she's fated to be denied."
Whatever response he's been expecting, it wasn't the one he got. She hurled herself across the space between them, throwing herself into his arms with her head pressed against his chest and sobbing uncontrollably.
Startled, Giles was still for a moment, then began gently stroking her hair. At first, the tender gesture just made her cry all the harder, but Giles only pulled her closer, murmuring meaningless assurances. Slowly the sobs stilled, until only the occasional hiccup was left and Becca raised a tear- stained, highly embarrassed face to his.
Quite instinctively, Giles brushed at the tears with his thumb and shook his head. "It's okay."
She sniffed and managed a small, watery smile. "I feel totally stupid now."
He'd managed, with a little difficulty, to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket and he handed it to her. "We all feel stupid sometimes. Sometimes it means we are, sometimes we aren't. Right now, you aren't. Rather overwhelmed I think, but not stupid."
She wiped at her eyes and tried smiling again. It worked a little more successfully than her last attempt. "Sorry."
Giles shook his head. "Don't apologise. You have a lot to deal with right now."
Becca nodded. "But I'm so confused," she admitted in a slightly wobbly voice. "It's all so complicated and I don't know what to do."
"Then we'll work it out together," Giles assured her firmly. "You dry those eyes and we'll sit here and work it through until we have a plan." He gave her an ironic smile. "And I'm going to go and make us some tea while you take some deep breaths and make yourself feel more presentable. You know where the bathroom is if you want to use that."
Becca managed to laugh at that. "I sure do."
Giles had just set the tea things on the coffee table when Becca reappeared from the bathroom. She had washed most of the tear stains from her face and had brushed her hair back behind her ears. She was still pale and the lost look hadn't disappeared from her eyes, but she did look a little more ready to face the world.
She sat down across from him, took her teacup and swallowed several careful sips of the hot liquid before looking up at him. He waited for her, only speaking when he was sure she was ready.
"Perhaps we should reintroduce ourselves," he suggested. "I'm Rupert Giles, but you can call me Giles."
She smiled, just a slight twitch of her lips. "I'm Rebecca Finn," she offered with a slightly embarrassed nod of her head. "Like you guessed. But you can call me Becca."
"What really happened, Becca?"
She had the grace to blush. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. It might mess up the future."
Giles refrained from pointing out that that appeared to be what she was there to do and simply repeated, "What really happened?"
Becca looked up at him, half ready to talk, half still reluctant, and in that instant Giles wondered how he could ever have missed it earlier. This girl- woman was Buffy Summers' daughter, from her toes to the top of her head. There were traces of Riley too he had to admit; her colouring, her extra height and heavier build compared to Buffy, those technically came from her father. But looking at her as she prepared herself to talk, all Giles could see was Buffy. And he realised he was prepared to do as much "messing" with the future as was required to make sure he got to watch her grow up and to help Buffy and Riley prepare her for the fate Wesley had revealed.
And he'd pay the price that taking such a course would require. No matter what.
"The truth, huh?" Becca shrugged. "Okay, the truth."
She put down her teacup and looked at him with an expression he remembered from the days of researching with Buffy in the now-destroyed library at SHS.
"I was walking home from visiting Mrs Sutherland - she lives on the next farm with her son and his wife - and I stopped by the stream for a minute."
"In Indiana?" Giles asked ironically.
"Iowa," Becca admitted sheepishly. "But I thought I'd better not tell the truth and I'd already said the "I", so I just said the next "I" state I could think of."
Of course Riley had taken his wife home. That was the kind of normal and expected thing he'd do. Giles supposed he could move to Iowa. Surely it couldn't be any worse than Sunnydale.
"Anyway, I'd just sat down when this funny little man stepped out from behind one of the trees. I nearly had a heart attack." She smiled a little at the memory. "He said he came from the 'Powers' and he had a job for me. At first I thought he was crazy." She looked up at Giles. "You know?"
"Mmm," he agreed without really saying anything. He realised with surprise that he'd lived his entire live with 'crazy' and he actually didn't know what she meant. All he had had was different degrees of strange; he'd never had a wake-up call from total ignorance like first Buffy and clearly Rebecca had. He didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse.
"Anyway," Becca continued, "he said there was something I was needed to do. That he could send me back in time and all I had to do was make my mother happy." She carefully picked up her teacup again, but Giles had already caught the flash of tears in her eyes. "It was only when he said it that I realised I'd never, ever seen her really happy. It was like being given a miracle and I said yes."
She looked up with a sudden grin. "That's how I really ended up in your bathroom."
"But now I'm here it's so complicated." Her voice faltered again. "I never knew about any of this. About demons and magic and Slayers and stuff. Mama never said anything at all and Daddy..." Her hands twisted in her lap, something Giles saw even if she had no idea she was doing it. "A girl at school lent me a book once; it was just a silly romance thing, about vampires. Daddy went ballistic. He and Mama had a huge fight that night. It's the only time I remember her shouting back at him. I thought it was just because he didn't believe in that stuff. He always made that quite clear. No supernatural stuff in our house. That was the rule."
She looked at Giles again, and now her expression was confused. "But he knows it's all real, so how could he pretend it isn't? And if Mama is Called to be the Slayer, how could he just make her stop?"
She closed her eyes and swallowed, clearly trying not to cry. "And what about me? I don't know anything about saving the world. I can't. I don't know how. No-one ever taught me. Giles, I'm so scared."
He couldn't help himself. He did the thing he had never dared to do with Buffy. He crossed over to her and folded her in his arms, offering all the comfort and caring he had to offer.
"It'll be all right. We'll sort it out and we'll make it okay. I promise."
At the first touch of his arms around her, Becca started to cry again. "I can't do it," she sobbed. "I don't know how to fight evil. I don't know to save the world. That's Mama's job and she gave it up and never told me about it. And I can't do it. I don't even know how to make her be happy."
Giles just held her, keeping up his quiet litany of promises, letting her cry out her confusion and her fear. He felt like history was repeating itself and he was as powerless to stop it as he had been for another teenage girl who had carried the fate of the world on her shoulders. He would have given anything to save Buffy the pain and sorrow she had already lived through, but he had learned early that that was something he simply could not do, no matter how much he might wish things otherwise. All he had ever been able to do was his very best to make sure Buffy was ready to face whatever evil was thrown at her next.
All he could do now was hold Buffy's daughter in his arms as she cried and do his best to make sure she, too, was as prepared as she could possibly be.
Even if he had to change history to do it.
As Becca's tears stilled, she tried to pull away, but Giles wouldn't let her. Instead, he caught her eyes and gave her a serious, steady look. "We're going to make sure your parents are happy and we're going to make sure you're ready." His voice was almost husky. "I promise you."
Becca nodded, feeling a sense of relief settling around her. "Okay."
She looked up again and caught something in Giles' face, in those startling green eyes and expressive features. It was like he had taken something infinitely precious and carefully locked it away so that it could never get free, never even be seen.
And the relief went away, leaving her with this horrible, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
