Upstairs, the door was closed. Buffy knocked loudly, but there was no answer, and the knocks were only soft thuds on the solid door. She growled.

"Buffy, wait." Angel took the vase and placed it in front of the door. He stood, blankly trying to recall the procedure. What was he to do now?

But while he tried to remember, the vase incinerated itself and the door in front of them opened. Buffy snorted. "Well, that was easy."

Angel glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and stepped forward into the light. He could only assume that she would follow.

When the white light faded from his eyes, he was left staring at the three shimmering figures in white standing before him. Otherworldly blue eyes focused on him, and inwardly he cringed.

Outwardly, he stepped forward and asked, "Where are our friends?"

One of the Oracles laughed. Angel couldn't decide if it was strangely musical or harshly grating. It did, however, put him on edge, and he inched nervously towards Buffy, who was as nonchalant as ever.

"Why does it ask questions with answers it cannot comprehend?" One asked another. They looked back at a thoroughly pissed Buffy and a nervous Angel.

"Listen, you. We are right here and you will not talk about us as if we are not and you will not refer to him as it and you will also not treat us as inferior beings. Now answer the goddamn question." Buffy's face was slightly flushed and her eyes glittered brightly. Angel caught his breath in his throat. She was absolutely radiant.

The female looked down at Buffy. "I like this one. She has fire." Angel smiled slightly. Now they were getting somewhere.

"You still haven't answered the question," he said. "Where are our friends?"

One of the males stepped down from the raised area on which they stood. He stood at eye level with Angel and said, "Your friends are in the alternate dimension known as Yivar."

Buffy blanched. Angel touched her arm gently before turning back to the Oracles. "Why are they there? How did they get there? How can we get them out?"

The female lifted her chin and stared down at him. "They are there because the little red witch among them performed a powerful spell at the end, sucking them all into a place where they would be safe from the fire."

"But you said they were in a hell dimension!" Buffy blurted out.

Angel turned sad, old eyes to her. "They are, Buffy. Not all hells are fiery." Buffy bit back her questions and looked at the wall in shame. Sometimes she could just kick herself for her tactlessness.

But then she remembered Cordelia, and things looked brighter. "Alright," she said in a quiet, subdued voice. "What are we supposed to do now?"

The Oracles looked at one another, and the female spoke again. "Nothing. You are to stay here and raise your child to be a warrior."

Buffy bit back an icy comment, and was about to ask another question when the explosion happened. She was knocked backward, out of the room, though not exactly through the wall. She sat up and looked around. Angel sat beside her, looking somewhat less sprawled and ridiculous. There were no large holes in the wall to indicate their disgraceful expulsion.

Buffy looked at Angel. "What was that?" She said, slightly stunned.

Angel shrugged. "You never expected the Powers That Be to be polite hosts, did you?"

Buffy grunted as she got to her feet. Come to think of it, she was feeling a bit heavier. She closed her eyes as she was hit by a sudden wave of nausea. Immediately, Angel was by her side, holding her arm and helping her stay upright. "Thanks," she muttered, still looking at the ground and trying not to puke. "Stupid baby." But still, she smiled and rubbed her belly fondly.

***

Buffy's belly was growing ever larger. She could feel the life inside her and she was afraid. She looked around the rubble and ash of what used to be L.A., and she thought of Dawn and Connor. She did not want her child born into this mess of a world. She wanted her to watch 'Looney Tunes' and eat Captain Crunch and ask why the lady in the checkout line was so fat. She did not want to teach her baby to fight, did not want her scavenging food from old restaurant stocks. She wanted her baby born free.

Millicent was not at all what Buffy expected. She was young and slender, with a mess of bright pink hair and a pentacle at her breast.

When Buffy asked her about it, she laughed. "I get that a lot. I'm a witch, and I use some of my power and intuition to help me deliver the babies. For instance, right now, I can tell you the sex of your baby, without any need for a machine."

Buffy politely declined, though the curiosity was killing her. She was impressed. An odd nostalgic pang hit her, and she realized that this witch reminded her of Willow. She held Angel's hand and tried not to think of the grief she still held within.

Their initial meeting had gone well, and Millicent assured Buffy that her pregnancy was perfectly healthy so far, and that she'd like to see her back in a month.

Angel had said very little, merely looming in the corner. Very little about his posture conveyed the nervousness he felt inside. After the hell he'd gone through with Connor, he refused to make any mistakes with this new life. His heart was immensely lightened by the good report, and the hints of a smile crept to his mouth.

The rest of that day passed in a pleasant haze for both of them. Angel drew up a system of government for the colony, and Buffy hung around their room and chatted with him, occasionally darting to the bathroom to revisit her breakfast.

But the pleasant atmosphere, as genuine as it seemed, was a facade, and they both knew it. A shadow clung in each of their minds, born of fear, and they each recognized well the calm before the storm.

Something, somewhere, was brewing.

***

It was in the second trimester that Millicent first detected it. By that time, Buffy had become friends with the girl, who reminded her of nothing so much as a weird melding of Willow and Tara. This girl, she thought, could easily be their daughter.

She was alone with Millicent, having their typical monthly exam. Milli, as she'd taken to calling her, was gently feeling her swollen belly when the baby kicked. It was only a tiny kick, but it sent Milli reeling backwards. Her eyes were wide with shock and fright.

"Oh, come on. As a midwife, I'd have expected you to have felt a baby kick before. It's not that exciting," Buffy joked uneasily. She really, really did not want to know what had made Milli scared like that.

"Didn't you feel it?" she asked, still pale and frightened. "When the baby...when the baby pushed against my hand, I felt it. I saw it. Buffy, it's not...it's not human. I mean it is in body, but there's something wrong inside its soul. It's...well, it's not good. I kind of got the impression of something with yellow eyes when I touched it. Oh, and a kind of intense, violent hatred for everything living. Something is very, very wrong with your baby."

Buffy gripped the edge of the table with one hand, and cradled her belly in the other. "What does this mean?" She asked. "No, wait. Let me rephrase that question. What do I have to disembowel, stake, skewer, slay, behead, kill, or otherwise maim in order to save my baby?"

Milli merely closed her eyes and shook her head. "I need time. I need...I need to contact some people, wiser and older than I. I honestly don't know what to tell you."

She stood awkwardly for a moment, and then left, leaving Buffy to stare blankly at the wall, holding herself as if she might shake apart at any moment.

***

Angel was in their rooms, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. The reflection hadn't gotten any clearer, but it was still their. Inexplicably, undeniably, there. It was driving him crazy. He touched the cool glass, and tried desperately to see some kind of distinctive feature in the mirror. But the smoky blur merely gazed back at him with black holes for eyes, and he soon grew frustrated and stormed out of the bathroom, being sure to close the door behind him, so that the mirror would not mock him any longer.

Buffy was waiting for him on their bed. She'd let her hair down, and she looked rather frazzled. At the same time, she looked so unbearably adorable that Angel scooped her into his arms as he sat down.

"Buffy. What's wrong?"

She pressed her face into his chest, breathing deep. This was the father of her baby. This was Angel. He would make it alright.

"Millicent said...she said there was something wrong with our baby. Something wrong with her soul."

Angel stiffened slightly, but tried his best to hide it from Buffy. Fortunately, she was focused on something else. "I...I don't know what to do, Angel! I'm so scared..."

She clung to him like a limpet, and he cradled her tenderly in his arms. He didn't ask how Buffy knew the baby was a girl, and he didn't ask what else Milli had said. He didn't ask how she knew that Millicent was correct. He didn't even try to process what she'd said. He just held her, and rocked her, back and forth, like she was the baby. He remembered the way she'd soothed him in his first days back from hell, and was not ignorant of the irony.

"We'll find a way, Buffy. We always find a way. Shhh. Don't worry, love. Don't worry. I've got you."

Gradually, Buffy began to calm down. "Gods, we have the shittiest luck, don't we?"

Angel laughed and buried his face in her hair. "Yeah, but we more than make up for it." He laid back on the bed, with her curled up at his side. Her warm body contrasted sharply against the cold he felt in the rest of him, and he curled around her, eager to warm ever part of himself.

Buffy laughed shakily. "You're like a big dog, you know that?"

Angel kissed the top of her head. "If I'm a dog, then you're an electric blanket. Mmm, so warm..." He buried his face in her neck, and kissed her softly, barely moving his lips.

"Angel..." she breathed out softly. His lips tickled against the soft skin over her artery, and she felt a thrill of danger and love.

"Buffy." He relaxed, and let his hand brush against her swollen stomach. A sharp pain hit him between the eyes, and he quickly brought his palm to his forehead. Something wet and sticky began to flow from his nose.

"Angel! You're bleeding!"

Damn it, he thought. I haven't had a regular nosebleed in a century. He sat up and rushed to the bathroom, keeping his head tilted back, and mopping at his nose with some kleenex. Buffy stood in the doorframe and watched.

Angel saw her reflection in the mirror, behind the smoky gray of his own. Her eyes were worried.

Hurt suffused Angel's being. His own child had rejected him. His little girl didn't trust him, didn't trust him with Buffy.

The psychological torture of it was exquisite. His baby didn't love him, and didn't recognize him as a father. He was a failure already, and the child hadn't even been born yet.

Buffy turned away guiltily. She knew, with a mother's intuition, what had happened. Just as she knew that her baby girl was asking her to make a choice. Demanding, like all children. She wanted Angel gone. The only thing was, Buffy wasn't sure what would happen if she didn't bend to her child's will.

Irene, she thought. Your name is Irene, and you will be the ruin of me.