Disclaimer: Since my name is not Joss Whedon, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and the amazing characters associated with the show belong to someone who isn't me. I also don't own the story line - that is taken from gidgetgirl's Before She Was Turned Challenge (details below). Lacey Kendall belongs to me.

The Before She Was Turned Challenge Unbeknownst to the others, there was more to Harmony Kendall than met the eye. Two years before she was turned at graduation, Harmony actually gave birth to a child. When the child is turned, it's up to the scoobies to take care of him/her while soulless Harmony wreaks havoc.

Requirements:

Harmony's soul must somehow be tied to the little one.
The little one must be oddly quiet and shy for a Harmony child.
Someone snuggling with the child.
A skinned knee.

Bonus:

Harmony retaining some of her humanity, and the child taking on some vampiric traits...

Author's Note I: I'd like to thank everyone who was kind enough to review the prologue and to apologise for the long delay in updating. I've been swamped with school work lately, and this chapter is the result of a long delay at the airport.

Author's Note II: The events of this chapter take place nearly a year after the end of the first chapter. Harmony never went to L.A. Although Lacey is physically three and a half, she is almost a year older mentally.

>

Chapter 1

When Buffy had been very young, four, maybe five years old, she had obstinately refused to go to sleep without having the nightlight on her bedside locker switched on, insisting, despite her mother's assurances to the contrary, that there were monsters living under it.

Now, at twenty-one, she not only knew for a fact that monsters existed, she spent a significant portion of her time fighting to protect the world from them.

/I did say that I was going to be a superhero when I grew up. / She thought ruefully, remembering the Power Girl costume she had practically lived in at the age of eight.

After Celia had died, she had thrown the costume away, and never played Power Girl again.

As patrols went, this one had been fairly successful, with three out of three vampires staked so far – even if the ct she had rescued from a toppled garbage can had been less than appreciative.

/One more sweep of the park, and then I'll head home. /

She hadn't even reached the park gates when she heard the screams.

A woman, in her twenties perhaps, with short fair hair, struggled in the grasp of a vampire, while her child looked on.

Harmony, sated, tossed the woman aside and reached for the child, only to be knocked off balance by the weight of an angry Slayer, who had launched herself on the vampire.

Her attempts to reach past the shorter woman were abruptly halted when the Slayer held a large wooden cross in front of her eyes, its close proximity causing the vampire a blinding headache that temporarily disorientated her.

Harmony's victim lay sprawled on the ground gazing up at the sky, her body already cooling, her eyes glassy and opaque.

Buffy couldn't help her, but she could keep Harmony from taking dessert.

Flinging the cross at the blonde vampire, she took advantage of her opponent's momentary weakness and scooped the tiny girl into her arms, sprinting towards her house at full speed, an indignantly howling Harmony in hot pursuit.

/Boy, / Buffy thought grimly. /She does not like it when people keep her from her food. /

Although Harmony, as a vampire, possessed superior speed and stamina, the gifts of a Slayer far outstripped hers and, even burdened by the weight of the now crying little girl in her arms, Buffy was still able to get away and she ran as fast as she could towards her house, where she knew Harmony could not follow without an invitation.

Drawn to the door by the child's crying and the sound of running feet, Xander came perilously close to being flattened by a charging Buffy when he opened the door.

Once the two were inside, and the door was shut and locked, he turned his attention to Buffy's crying companion.

"Who's this?"

"I found her in the park. Her mom is d. . ." She glanced down at the child. "D-E-A-D."

"V-A-M-P-I-R-E?"

Buffy nodded confirmation, holding out her hand to the little girl, who shrank away from her.

"I want my Mommy." Her voice was soft, almost inaudible.

"I'm sorry, sweetie." Buffy was surprised, and a little hurt, when the little girl shrank away from her as she knelt down. "Your mommy isn't here right now."

"What's your name, princess?" Xander leaned forward so that his head was level with the child's.

"Lacey." She put her thumb in her mouth. "I want to go home."

"I know." Buffy felt like taking the child in her arms, hugging and consoling her, but Lacey pulled away, taking Xander's hand and clinging to it for dear life.

Thinking that it might be better to leave the little girl be for a little while, Buffy turned her attention to Xander.

"Was everything okay while I was gone? Dawn wasn't any trouble?"

Despite her younger sister's protests that she was old enough to be trusted alone, and that she was more than capable of looking after herself for a few hours, Buffy preferred to have someone babysit if she, Willow and Tara were out, much to Dawn's disgust.

"She was fine." Xander reported cheerfully. "She's asleep."

"Buffy?" A slightly sleepy voice called, as if on cue, from upstairs. "Is that you?"

"At least she was." Xander amended smoothly, not missing a beat.

A minute later the pyjama clad teenager appeared at the bottom of the staircase.

"What's going on? How was patrol?" Her eyes fell on Lacey, who regarded the newcomer with a mixture of curiousity and apprehension. "Where did you find her?"

"The park."

"My Mommy brought me there." Lacey's words were slightly muffled by the thumb in her mouth.

"Oh." Dawn met her sister's gaze. "And mommy is . . ." She almost didn't want to know.

"Yup." Buffy confirmed gloomily.

"So what now?"

Nobody had an answer to Xander's question.

>

Fear and fury warred within Harmony as she watched the scene from the garden, unable to enter, unable to snatch her child away to safety, unable to do anything but watch as the Slayer and her friends fawned over her little girl.

Contrary to popular opinion, Harmony was not entirely devoid of intelligence.

If she were to try breaking down the door, demanding that Lacey be returned to her, they would want to know why, and if they found out that she was a vampire . . .

The mere thought filled Harmony with horror.

She couldn't put her daughter at risk like that.

All she could do was watch.

>

"Lacey?" Dawn crouched down in front of the silent child. "Do you want to come into the kitchen with me and get something to eat? We've got ice-cream." She added temptingly.

The little girl considered her question carefully before nodding solemnly. "Okay."

The teenager held out her hand. "Let's go, then."

Lacey hung back, tightening her grasp on Xander's hand. "You take me."

"Okay."

The little girl held out her arms to be lifted, allowing Xander to carry her into the kitchen, out of earshot.

"What happened tonight?" Dawn asked quietly, not wanting their tiny guest to hear her.

"Lacey was with her mom in the park." Buffy's grim tone did not bode well for Harmony. "Don't ask me what they were doing there so late. Harmony killed her, right in front of her kid. She wanted to take Lacey too."

"She's just a little kid!" Dawn was appalled. "What is she – three?"

"About that."

"So what are we going to do with her now?"

"Hang onto her for tonight, I guess, then maybe call the police in the morning, see if they can find her family."

"And what will you tell them about where you found her?"

"I've got until tomorrow morning to think of something."

"What if they think that you had something to do with killing her mom?" Dawn asked practically. "It does look suspicious that you just happened to be there. I don't think they'd swallow 'a vampire killed her' and you can't expect lacey to be able to tell them what happened."

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

"But what if . . ."

Whatever else Dawn might have said was lost as Xander's surprised cry drew their attention to the kitchen.

"You guys might want to take a look at this." He called out, a healthy dose of urgency in his tone.

Lacey, exploring the refrigerator in search of a snack, had taken possession of one of the mugs of pig's blood that Spike, despite Buffy's commands to refrain from doing so, kept stocked for his use.

She looked up at the horrified trio, her innocent, angelic expression tarnished somewhat by the trickle of blood running down her chin, the barely visible ridges marring her forehead and her tiny, bloodstained fangs.

"I was thirsty."

TBC.