EPISODE ELEVEN
"Regeneration"

It was nearing eight a.m. and Giles was just picking up the receiver of the Magic Box phone to call regarding her tardiness when Anya bustled through the door.

"Xander's missing," she stated matter-of-factly.

Giles blinked and put the phone back. "I'm sorry?"

"I said, 'Xander's missing'. He didn't come home from patrol last night." The former demon's face was pinched and tired, deep worry lines bracketing her mouth as she dumped her handbag onto the counter. "We were supposed to celebrate our engagement with all-night sex, so I got all dolled up in my fancy lingerie and had the champagne and chocolate sauce ready, and some of that whipped-cream-in-a-can stuff he likes so much. And I sat there and I waited, and waited, and it all got spoiled. And this is all Buffy's fault, you know."

She finally paused to draw a breath and Giles took advantage of the lull, seizing on the most inane thing she'd said. "Engagement?"

She waggled her left hand at him, making the modest diamond there sparkle in the light. "He finally got around to the asking part. I was beginning to think I'd have to keep ignoring the little box in his coat pocket forever."

"Oh, well. That's..." He straightened his shoulders. Polite, Giles, be polite. "I extend my congratulations, then. To both of you."

"Both of us aren't here," she said impatiently. "Which brings us back to the whole Xander's missing thing." She placed her hands on her hips and stared at him expectantly. "Well? Do something."

He frowned. If Xander hadn't made it home, then it was conceivable that Buffy had met the same fate... "Did you -?"

"Call Buffy?" Anya scoffed. "Of course, I did. I'm not stupid."

"And -?"

"She's not home either. Which is why I came to you. But I'm feeling very dissatisfied by your slow response time. It doesn't inspire confidence."

Giles was actually becoming more concerned by the second, but was determined to be pragmatic. "We haven't time to go out to the house, and she hasn't made use of the back room for quite a while, so nothing of hers is available for me to carry out a locator spell. Do you have anything of Xander's we could use?"

She pursed her lips, considering that, and eventually resorted to flashing the engagement ring again. "Only this. He had it a lot longer than I've had it so there should be enough residual energy."

They were gathering components when Willow and Tara arrived, rushing through the door in a dizzying hodge-podge of brightly colored prints, fringed jackets and flowing skirts.

"Its Buffy!" Willow blurted, pink-cheeked with alarm, clutching nervously at the strap of her book-bag.

"She..." Tara struggled to catch her breath. "Sh-she's..."

"Missing," Anya finished for them and nodded sagely. "We know."

"What?" Willow seemed caught between genuine curiosity and disappointment that she hadn't been the one to break the news. "How?"

"Xander's AWOL too," the ex-demon explained. "We were doing a spell, but now you're here, you can do it. I don't think Giles is anywhere near calm enough to be effective."

"I say, I'm perfectly calm!"

She snorted at the heated disclaimer, ignoring his further sputtering in favor of spreading a map out onto the table and propping candles at the corners to hold it flat.

Willow cast an eye over their preparations, her attention drawn to the gleaming ring now sitting in the center of a little ceramic dish.

"Okay. So since when does Xander wear diamonds?"

~[*]~

Angel shook his head, hands tight on the steering wheel. He'd been thinking about his Childe's stupidity for most of the journey, and continued to be astounded by the magnitude of it. "I still can't believe you chose now to leave her alone."

"She can fend for herself," Spike snarled from his prostrate position on the back seat. "You know it. One reason you rode off all John-Wayne-like into the sunset, innit?"

"I don't do sunsets," Angel muttered, glancing into the rear mirror to ensure the DeSoto was still behind them. Wesley drove like a little old lady. "Or sunrises for that matter." He flexed his hands; what scant daylight that had managed to breach the recently installed, outrageously expensive, tinted windows was beginning to sting his skin.

Cordelia turned to peer over the seat. "How are you coping? Is the pain worse?" When Spike just looked at her, shadowed eyes telling her all she needed to know, she turned back to Angel. "Drive faster."

"We're hitting the town limits now, Cor. The last thing we want is to be pulled over."

Town limits? Spike hauled himself up on his elbows to peer out the window, just in time to see the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign flash by. He sighed wistfully. Sod it all, he hated to break tradition, even if it was for something as important as this.

"Don't s'pose you'd do a bloke a favor..."

Angel growled. "I'm not going back to flatten the damn sign, Spike, so don't even think about asking."

Spike flopped back onto the seat. "Wanker."

~[*]~

Buffy stared at the expanding pool of fluid in dismay. "Crap," she muttered. "I really liked these shoes, too."

Xander chose that precise moment to muddle his way back into consciousness. "Sweet Mother, somebody get the number of that..." He took in his surroundings with barely opened eyes. "Hey, I know this place..." He turned his head to look at Buffy. "You're all wet," he observed.

"Yeah. That's kinda what happens when your water breaks."

"Huh?" His gaze sharpened and he shot to his feet. "Oh crap! Your water broke?"

"That's what I said." She stared thoughtfully at the thick denim of her coat, which she'd opened out on the floor, then gave him a perfunctory once over. "Give me your shirt."

He tugged at the open flaps of his shirt, pulling blue-checked flannel protectively against his chest. He had no idea where his own coat had disappeared to. "Why?"

"Why do you think?" She rolled her eyes. "Look, Xan, I'm trying to be all practical girl here. You know, not making with the screaming hysteria? You can go ahead and do that part if you want, but I vote for Buffy not giving birth on cold cement. I want more padding. Pad me!" She held out an imperious hand.

Xander shrugged out of the shirt, leaving him in the dreadful orange T-shirt he wore underneath. He was handing it over when he finally noticed their audience. "Oh. Hi there, mysterious-kidnapper-guys."

Andrew gave him an absent little wave, but he got no other reply, their eyes all remained riveted to Buffy.

Xander shook his head, turning to look at her himself. "What's with the three stunned monkeys? Dumb, dumb and even more dumb?"

"Yep." She spread the shirt alongside her coat like she was preparing for a picnic. "But not so much with the mysterious. Recognize dumb monkey number three?"

Xander moved closer to the cell bars, pausing a second to frown confusedly at the ones Buffy had crushed, before focusing on the trio on the other side. One familiar face stood out. "Well, well. Jonathon. I'd say it was nice to see you again but..." The young man turned rounded blue eyes on him, and Xander was startled by the blank expression in them. "I think Jonathon's left the building."

"We're dead." Jonathon told him, his voice wooden and stilted. "We are total dead men."

Buffy nodded. "Got that part ...right." She grimaced, her hand shooting out to grab Xander's forearm, nails digging into the skin.

Both of them let out a long, harmonized, "Owww..."

~[*]~

The Angel Investigations cavalcade pulled up outside the Magic Box just in time to see an enormous flash of white light come from inside.

Angel blinked at the residual spots before his eyes. "Someone's spell-casting in there."

Cordelia gave him a withering look. "It's a magic shop, doofus."

Spike's bleach-blonde head materialized between them as he leant forward to peer at the storefront, squinting against the sun. "Too early for customers," he said. "The Wiccans, most like. Or Rupert. Man's got some serious mojo on tap when he wants it." He handed Angel a blanket over the seat. "Suit up, Peaches. Can't afford to be dilly-dallying about."

He shoved the rear door open and climbed out, leaving the others to make their own way.

When he entered the store mere seconds later, it was to see Willow and Tara batting out tiny spot-fires on a town map and Anya trying to wipe soot from Giles' face. He paused to watch the show, absentmindedly casting a frown overhead when he noticed the lack of tinkling bell. Had they still not fixed that? Lazy sods.

"Still a fraction heavy-handed with the herbs there, Red?" he asked, moving toward them, trying his best to swagger despite the persistent spasms in his midsection.

Willow barely glanced at him, and threw a disgruntled look at Anya. "Less with the herbs and more with the distracting surprise announcements," she mumbled. Then she finally realized who'd spoken. "Spike! You're back!"

"Yeah," he drawled. "Funny that, 'cause I've never been one for the return gig before." He pointed at the paraphernalia on the table. "Won't be needing any of that locator rubbish anyhow. Know where the Slayer's holed up, just came to see if you lot want in on the rescue wagon."

"R-rescue?" Tara's eyes went wide. "Are they in danger?"

"Yeah, as if!"

The incredulous snort came from behind them where Cordelia had posed herself artfully in the doorway. The dramatic entrance was short-lived, spoiled by the great lump of grey wool that suddenly jostled her out of the way. Once inside, the smoldering material was shed like a cocoon to reveal Angel underneath. He cast an apologetic smile at Cordy, only to have her snub him completely.

Spike smirked at the disgusted expression on her face, before responding to Tara himself. "Cheerleader 's right that score. No peril from the daft lot of Nancy's that took 'em, but looks like Seth's decided to make an early entrance."

Giles finally managed to extricate himself from Anya's irksome fussing, straightening his glasses and giving the blonde vampire a long, measured stare. "How exactly are you aware of this?"

"Well, it's like you said before, innit?" Spike tapped his stomach, wincing when something twinged. "With great lashings of pain and all that other fun stuff. Link's not as cocked up as I thought."

"He's telling the truth. For once." Angel glanced at the clock on the wall. "Give it another minute and you'll see for yourself." He gestured toward his own beaten face. "It's not pretty."

"Took the bloody words right out my mouth," Spike muttered. He gave Cordelia a mournful shake of his head. "Havin' to see that first thing ev'ry morning. Don't know how you manage it."

"Shut up, Spike," she chided.

"Right you are."

He sighed wearily and tipped his head back, lashes fluttering shut. Then they snapped back open to reveal the now familiar polychromatic hues of his irises. He growled, his body going rigid.

"Look out, here he goes again." Angel leapt forward to tackle the younger vamp as he made a break for the street, yelling his Slayer's name.

~[*]~

Buffy swept a strand of hair out of her eyes, riding out the tail end of another contraction. Even though they were coming almost continuously now, they weren't as bad as she'd been expecting; each of them cutting out at the very peak in the very same way her indigestion had. Her mind had come up with all sorts of scenarios of how that pain transference could be effecting Spike, none of which was particularly comforting.

She cast an anxious glance up at Xander, who was across the other side of the cell, closer to their kidnappers than her. "I'm... sorry..." she puffed, "I won't... do the... grabbing thing anymore. Okay?"

The brunette rubbed at the bruises, now staining the skin of both his forearms. "Can I get that in writing?"

She gave up on the repentant act and glared at him. "Damn it, Xander Harris, I can't do this by myself so stop being all avoidy guy and get your ass over here!" When he didn't answer for a moment, she snarled. "Don't make me come and get you."

Xander cast a shamefaced glance over his shoulder at the still-dumbstruck trio, who continued to ignore him, and moved back toward the Slayer. When he got close enough, she yanked him down so that he was kneeling at her feet. He threw a hand over his eyes as she tugged up the hem of her skirt.

"Aargh! Buffy parts!" he protested. "Non-Xander-friendly parts of Buffy!"

"Total agreement under any other circumstances," she agreed, nodding. "But for right now, just tell me if I'm crowning. Can you can see the head?"

"The head of what?"

She just stared at him until he capitulated with a weird little mewling noise, peering warily through his splayed fingers and then quickly looking away again, skittering back a few feet.

"Oh God."

She gnawed at her lower lip. "So? You saw the head, right?"

"Oh yeah!" He jerked his chin vaguely in the direction of her hemline. "And you do realize that I have that image etched on the inside of my eyeballs now right? I'm scarred for life..."

~[*]~

"...He's not the only one," Andrew murmured. He chanced a peek at his companions. "I say we make a break for it before Falchion and Gladius get here."

"I'm with Andrew," Jonathon seconded, rousing from his state of shock.

"Why am I not surprised? " Warren asked disgustedly. He scowled at them. "You two nimrods deserve each other. Am I the only one thinking of the potential here?"

Andrew frowned, bewildered. "Other than our potential deaths?"

Warren pointed emphatically into the cell. "That kid is the gold mine we've been waiting for."

Jonathon blinked, mouth dropping open. "Are you nuts?"

"I'm definitely sensing some nuttiness," Andrew agreed.

"This is the break we've been waiting for," Warren insisted. "If we can sell it..."

"It's not an 'it'," Jonathon said. "It's a baby. A living, breathing human being."

"So's your precious Buffy. You didn't have a problem with that."

"Yeah, well, I should have." Jonathon folded his arms and stared up at his former comrade defiantly. "I do now!"

"Yeah, me too," Andrew declared. He took an antagonistic step into Warren's personal space, realizing for the first time as he did so that he was actually taller than the other boy was. He straightened his shoulders, using the scant difference to his advantage. "Two against one, Warren. You're voted off this island."

Warren looked back and forth between them. They weren't scared of him anymore, and none of his bullying tactics were going to work. He took the only option he could think of in the face of such mutiny; he turned and ran for the door.

He hustled out into the corridor, cursing the larger frame that had previously been his trump card but was now proving to be his downfall. They were scrawnier and quicker, and he was already getting tired.

Despite that, he'd almost gotten as far as the exit when Jonathon crash-tackled him from behind, catching him around the knees. They toppled forward onto the ground. Andrew leapt onto Warren's back with an ululating battle cry, smashing his head into the concrete.

"Rope." Jonathon fumbled around, trying to pin Warren's flailing feet. "Do you see any rope? We need to tie him up."

His eyes widened in surprise when a thick roll of twine spontaneously appeared under his nose. He looked beyond it, up, up and up again, past the outstretched arm and into the dark fathomless eyes of Gladius.

"I think there's enough there for all of you," the Warrior said calmly.

~[*]~

Spike groaned, slithering out the passenger seat of Angel's car and tumbling onto the grass.

Fancy leaving him to fend for himself! In his condition! Daft gits, the whole bloody lot of them. Those Thompson Twin Watchers especially, tossing out words like 'expedience' and 'liability' like they knew anything at all about it. He hadn't been rendered completely useless, but even Peaches and his floozy had abandoned all their sympathetic pretexts in favor of playing the heroes.

He groaned again, the vocal expression of his suffering doing little to alleviate it. He'd never felt anything remotely like this, like a deeply ingrained part of himself was tearing itself free. Wrenching and pulling, and shredding his insides. The implications of what that could mean were making his head spin but in spite of it all, the urge to find Buffy was more powerful than ever, driving him onward through the pain.

He struggled to his feet, only to stagger drunkenly sideward, gasping, one hand shooting out steady his weight against the hood of the Angelmobile. He had the most overwhelming desire to...

Push?

~[*]~

"Gotta push," Buffy insisted. "Pushing now."

Xander shook his head. "Buff, you can't. Try to hold back until we can..."

"No," she grunted. "No time. Push now."

Xander briefly wondered when she had devolved into Cave-Buffy. That was never a good sign. "Uh..."

She ignored him, effectively cutting off any further protest. She knew that she was supposed to do this, she just knew it.

Xander studied the determined set of her features. He'd seen that face before and it was also never a good sign. He wasn't arguing with that face. "Okay, then." He pushed up non-existent shirtsleeves and assumed a catcher's position. "Let's do it."

Buffy immediately bore down, her efforts punctuated by loud, open-mouthed yell. She gasped for breath, then repeated the cycle, keeping her eyes on Xander the whole time just in case he was gonna faint or something. He was making all kinds of sympathetically anguished faces, but his focus never waned once.

Don't look now, Xan, but I think you've become a grown-up.

You are the biggest hero EVER!

Angel suddenly appeared at the cell bars. Taking in the situation, his eyes went wide and he let out a sort of asthmatic wheeze, sounding like he'd been gut-punched. "Oh Jeez..." He grabbed onto the cell door and yanked, ripping it off at the hinges. "Come on, we've got to..."

Buffy held up her hand, glaring at him. "Don't. Say. It," she hissed. "Not goin' to... Grraagh!" She gritted her teeth and pushed hard into the next contraction. She wasn't sure, but she thought that maybe something tore open.

Angel swayed a little on his feet, growing even paler than normal. He started to back away. "I'll, um... I'll go get Cordy and the... the others... O-okay?"

Not waiting for an answer, he turned and ran, almost colliding with the trio who stood outside the room peering in, each of them with their hands tightly bound.

Xander tamped down the urge to laugh at the idea of a vampire that bailed at the sight of blood. "I think we should forget that whole 'monkey' analogy, Buff," he said instead. "The way those guys keep hanging around it's more like the wise men at the nativity." He managed a smile. "Or possibly the unwise men. On the bright side, that usually equals presents."

The laugh that his joking produced strangled in Buffy's throat and she lurched into one last almighty push, screaming with exertion.

"That's it. You've got it," Xander soothed. He held the tiny round head as it emerged, remembering from years and years of M*A*S*H-rerun-training to turn it to the side so that the baby's shoulders could come out, the rest of the tiny body sliding out behind. "Hey," he murmured. "Way to make an entrance, buddy." He looked up at Buffy with tears in his eyes, and was shocked to see the burning amber of hers. "Buff? You okay?"

She growled at him, having fully vamped out during the final moments of Seth's birth.

There was a startled gasp from behind them and they turned, expecting Angel back with reinforcements or even for one of the trio to finally say something constructive. They didn't expect to see Spike propped against the doorframe, wild-eyed and ashen-faced.

"Oh God," he whispered, gaze riveted to the small, squirmy pink body in Xander's hands. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and it took a concerted effort to shift his attention toward his Slayer. She stared back - sweaty, yellow-eyed and fangy, and the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "Oh God, Buffy..."

Buffy just continued to stare. She'd never seen that look on his face before. He seemed so fragile. And his voice... How could someone so old sound so much like a lost little boy?

"You look like crap," she informed him after a moment.

He let out a weird choking noise, not quite a cough or a laugh, but somehow both at the same time.

Xander grimaced, deciding to ignore the tension that had suddenly sprung up around him and concentrate on the task of cutting the umbilical cord that still connected Seth to his mother.

At the exact moment that the blade of his always-handy-dandy Swiss Army knife severed that final link, the baby began to cry and a massive jolt of pain speared through Spike's torso. It was agonizing, a hundred times worse than the labor. He felt like he'd been shot. At close range, with horrendous powder burns to boot.

He staggered a few steps forward, one hand reaching out, whether for Buffy or the baby he would never know, and collapsed in a heap as his heart stopped.

To be concluded...

A/N: Hey everybody! One more to go and this baby's in the can! (*does weirdly disjointed interpretation of the Snoopy Dance*). I'm trying to pull together all the loose threads so that the last part can be up sometime before Xmas.
Don't forget to leave a review. I don't seem to get as many as other writers, or maybe I'm just paranoid about it. ((*glances over shoulder* - Hey, lurking guy, do I look paranoid to you? Yeah, well, same to you, buddy!)
LOL! Dee.