Disclaimer: I don't own anything. At all. So if you did sue me, you'd get nothing.

a/n: ReganX and Imzadi, I know you're right about leaving babies alone, and I know all of the things that can happen to a baby if you do, but Angel is a new- and fairly clueless- vampire. Hence, the whole I-don't-know-crap-about-babies-and-haven't-discovered-the-miracle-of-parenting-books attitude. Also, ReganX Kellina is one of my best friend's name, everyone calls her Kelli, though, and if you want to see how Cordy and Doyle adapt to the twins, read Redemption the prequel to this fic. I'm posting Chapter One today. It might clarify a lot of the things in this fic. It starts with BtvS 'Becoming Part Two' and ends right before the beginning of this fic, which is why that one is going to be updated a lot faster then this one. Freezyboncoolipants, Doyle's around for this fic, although he did die (check out Redemption). And Alen Pitt, Buffy won't be coming to L.A. to take the babies, like I said in the summary, this fic takes place five years after she gave them up, setting it right after 'Chosen', so Buffy has to go to L.A. and tell the Scoobies about her children. When she's there, well-you just have to keep reading. And thanks to Night Essence, Totally Fearless, Angel-Cordy, and for reviewing. I hope everyone likes this chapter. I'll shut up now.


"So, what are we going to do now?"

Buffy smiled softly. She could think of a lot of things they could do, now that everyone was out of danger. They had defeated the First Evil, there was a 'world of possibilities' open to the whole Scooby Gang now. No Hellmouth, Big Bad, or anything else remotely dangerous to them now. She opened her mouth to reply, but about twenty other people beat her to it.

"Let's go on a road trip!" Vi suggested loudly. Several other new Slayers agreed.

"That'd be cool." Rona said.

"No!" Rona spoke up.

"People need hospitals, not fast food and speeding tickets." Kennedy added.

Buffy agreed as she looked around the bus. Most of the White Hats were nursing several injuries and Wood looked like he was on the verge of collapsing from blood loss alone, never mind anything else.

"I agree," Giles said, putting an end to the bickering that had broken out while Buffy assessed the damage, "which is why we are going to Los Angeles. Angel and the rest of his team can help house us for a while, and we can get everyone the proper medical attention."

Buffy felt her grin slide right off of her face. Los Angeles? No, no, no, no, NO! Not there, not Angel. That was a very bad idea.

"No!" the word slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. Everyone turned to look at her. "Um, I mean we can't because of the um, thingy. We have to get to um, the Mall of America. So we can, uh, properly grieve for the loss of the mall in Sunnydale!" she managed to come up with a- well suitable wasn't the right word-excuse for her small outburst.

Everyone looked at her incredulously.

"I beg your pardon?" Giles asked, looking at her with his eyebrows raised.

"We have to go to the Mall of America." Buffy repeated, realizing just how stupid she had just sounded.

"The Mall of America?" Faith repeated harshly. "People are bleeding all over the bus and you want to go to the Mall of America?"

"I must agree with Faith, Buffy, I know you must be feeling rather proud at having defeated the First, but really, a little levity would be useful." Giles added.

Buffy avoided his eyes. She knew everyone was down from the losses at the Hellmouth. Personally, she was repressing, denial was always good. Which was something she had quite a bit of practice with- spending the past four and a half years trying to convince yourself your children were alright tended to make a girl a master at denial.

"I just don't want to go to L.A." Buffy said softly, not meeting his eyes.

"Why-" Giles started, but he was cut off.

"Well, too bad Buffy. Too many people have died already, we can't risk losing anyone else." Xander said harshly.

Buffy would've said something about his tone, but he had just lost Anya, it was understandable. Buffy, herself, might've been like that had it not been for the powerful forces of denial and distraction. Hell, she'd be sobbing on the ground right now. Why did Spike have to-. No, she wasn't going down that road. There wasn't a chance in hell that she was going to let herself think of the two lost Scoobies. Not now, it was too soon.

"We'll go to L.A., then." Willow said in a falsely cheerful voice. Clearly, she was having problems with the casualties, too.

Buffy said nothing, only stared out the window, loosing herself in the memories of the past.

"Oh my god." she said softly.

The blonde Slayer was sitting on her bathroom sink, looking at something in her hand.

"Oh my god." She repeated. "This isn't happening. It's not happening. There is no way this is happening. How could this happen? Okay, I know how this could happen, but why? Why? Why? Why?" by now she was screaming at the ceiling, the scream of a helpless girl wanting some kind of miracle to save her.

And that was when Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer, defeater of the Judge, the Master, and in a way, Angelus, began to cry. She was helpless. There was nothing she could do to stop this. She was pregnant.

"Buffy, do you want to go shopping?" Joyce Summers asked her daughter concernedly.

"No, why?" Buffy asked as she headed out the door.

"It's just that you've been dressing so weirdly lately, if this is a ploy to get me to take you to the mall, I'd be more then happy to." Joyce said, eyeing the large sweatshirt and sweatpants at least two sizes too big for the tiny blonde.

"No, I'm fine. Seriously." She added as she caught her mother's disbelieving look.

It wasn't that Joyce disapproved of Buffy's clothing, but the Slayer was usually so fashion-forward that the sudden change was a bit odd. Just last week Joyce had read a newspaper article that listed the symptoms of cutting. Depression and large clothing to hide the cuts/scars had been at the top of the list. Two signs that her daughter was currently exhibiting. But she knew Buffy would be late for school if she pursued the subject, and with her Principal Snyder just waiting for any reason- no matter how small- to expel Buffy, being late would not be a good thing. Buffy disappeared and Joyce mentally filed away her suspicions for a later date.

"Angel, I need to talk to you." Buffy fidgeted as she stepped inside the huge mansion.

"What is it?" Angel asked anxiously, worried by the look on her face.

"Um, you might want to sit down." She warned. "It's a good thing you can't have heart attacks." She laughed nervously. How on Earth was she going to tell him this?

Angel didn't move from his place in front of her.

"What is it?" he asked slowly.

"Are you sure you want to know?" Buffy stalled.

"Yes," Angel said impatiently, tired of her delaying, "Buffy, just tell me what's going on."

Buffy took a deep breath.

"I'm pregnant." She said.

"Buffy, where were you? I called a meeting to discuss the problem of Spike's return." Giles asked his Slayer concernedly.

"Um, I was out. At the Bronze." Buffy lied badly.

"I see." Giles took off his glasses and polished them. "Fortunately, we deemed Spike to be harmless in his current condition, nevertheless, you should make an effort to be at these meetings."

"I know Giles. From now on I'll be all over the presents. You can call me Santa's Helper, I'll be present so much." Buffy assured him quickly, thankful that he hadn't seen through the horrible lie.

"Buffy, don't you even want to hold them?" Angel tried to get the teenager to budge from her unyielding resolve to try not to even look at the children.

"No." Buffy said firmly. "I can't Angel." After arguing about this for the past seven months, her nerve finally broke. "I just can't. That makes them real, it makes them our babies, and I can't deal with that, so don't ask me to. Just take them and go."

Angel took the two children in his arms wordlessly. She didn't even know if they were boys or girls. Buffy walked off, tears slipping down her cheeks. She didn't look back.

Buffy watched as the paramedic tried to give Joyce CPR. For a second, she thought it had worked, but then the paramedic started recording the time of death. Her mother was dead. Dead and never coming back.

The Slayer didn't even hear what the paramedic said, nor process what she was doing. Her mind was focused on one word. Sorry. She was sorry that she had gotten expelled. She was sorry she had lied about being the Slayer. She was sorry that she had lied about Angel. She was sorry that she had run away. She was sorry for all the times she fought with Dawn. She was sorry that she had kept so many secrets. Especially the biggest secret of them all. She was sorry she had never told Joyce she was a grandmother. Now she never would.

After a few more thoughts like this, the physically and emotionally exhausted Slayer drifted off to sllep

"Mommy?" a small golden haired little girl tugged on Buffy's leg.

"Mommy?" another little girl was tugging on Buffy's other leg.

Buffy looked down. Twins, her twins, were looking up at her with huge green eyes.

"Where are you?" they both asked.

The twins aged a few years, now they looked about ten years old.

"Mom?" both of them tapped her on one of her shoulders.

"Where are you?" they asked again.

So it went on, until both girls were over eighty.

"Mom, why didn't you come?" they both asked.

It wasn't the first time Buffy had had this dream. Every Mother's Day, or holiday, or day around the time that she thought was their birthday, Buffy dreamed about her children. Sometimes they were boys, sometimes they were girls, and occasionally there was a boy and a girl. Sometimes they looked more like Angel then her, or they could resemble Buffy the most, she saw them looking nothing like either one of them, but more like one of their grandparents, or so she thought, since she had never met Angel's parents, for obvious reasons. Buffy had dreamed up hundreds of different versions of her children, maybe even thousands, despite her efforts to forget about them altogether. It was one of the many reasons that returning from Heaven had been so hard. In Heaven, she had known they were safe.

"Buffy? We're at the hospital." Willow tapped her shoulder gently.

Buffy jerked awake at the sudden contact so reminiscent of the ten year olds' actions from her dream. When she saw it was only Willow, she began to cry. Years of wondering and worrying, combined with the loss of Spike and so many other people, and all of the events of the past seven years came pouring out all at once as she sobbed brokenly. In just a few hours she was going to be facing Angel, her children, all of the lies she had told, and the last secret she had kept, at the same time. Willow looked lost as she awkwardly patted her friend on the back, and everyone else looked concerned.

"Rona, take everyone down to the emergency room. Xander, Dawn, stay here, Faith, you can go with Robin if you want." Giles said, taking charge as the new Slayers looked curious as to why one of their leaders was suddenly crying.

Faith looked at Robin, then she looked at Buffy.

"I'm staying." She announced.

Within a few minutes, Giles's instructions had been carried out, and what remained of the Scoobies gathered around Buffy and Willow.

"B, what's wrong?" Faith asked, mentally slapping herself in the head as she realized how stupid that question was. Obviously, there were quite a few things wrong, including the recent death of the second souled vampire Buffy had fallen in love with.

"Everything." Came Buffy's response, slightly muffled by Willow's shoulder as she sobbed into it.

"Buffy, can you explain?" Giles asked gently.

Buffy opened her mouth to say 'no' and continue crying, but she knew she couldn't keep the Scoobies in the dark forever. And she realized she didn't want to, either. After years of watching friends and family die, never knowing about the two babies that meant so much to her, she was tired of keeping the secret.

"Yes." She answered instead, pulling herself off of the Wicca and sitting up in the bus seat. "But you might not want to hear it."

"Buffy?" Dawn asked.

The Key hadn't said much after their initial euphoria at destroying the Hellmouth, the reality of Spike's sacrifice had sunken in as soon as that feeling evaporated, and since then she hadn't really said anything. However, concern for her sister's strange behavior overrode that. Instinctively, the Scoobies knew that Spike's death wasn't the cause of the sudden waterworks, although it was probably a factor.

Buffy sighed.

"I'm a mom." She said simply.

Four jaws dropped. Xander was the only one who processed the full meaning of what she'd said, and that was only because the whole situation felt surreal. Really, everything that had happened after Anya's death did. Buffy's seemingly air headed trip suggestion had been the only thing that'd momentarily snapped him out of his stupor, even if he didn't really notice that Buffy had said it, or the false tone in which she said it. Of course, everyone else had been too wrapped up in their own issues, too, to notice either.

"What do you mean you are a mom?" he asked pointedly.

"Because I am. I'm not pregnant, but I was." Buffy said heavily. Ironically, she actually felt lighter inside, it felt good to know that the people she loved the most would know about the children she'd loved and kept safe in her heart for the past four and a half years.

"You were?" Giles asked her, recovering at last.

"Yep. They're Angel's." she replied, guessing what the next questions would be. "And yes, they. I had twins…" Buffy began to drift off as she thought back on the few short glimpses of the twins that she'd allowed herself.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Willow asked in a hurt voice.

"Willow, I was seventeen, it took me two months two even admit to myself that I might be pregnant. It took me another three weeks to take a pregnancy test, and another three months after that to tell Angel- who you all thought was dead, so it wasn't like I could just tell anyone." Buffy said.

"Why not?" Dawn challenged. "Even if you told everyone Willow's spell hadn't worked and you had killed Angel, why didn't you tell anyone? Why couldn't you at least tell mom? Why didn't you keep them? Why didn't you go visit them? Or talk to Angel?"

"I was scared. I was scared, and I was young, and I was stupid. So I lied. Why do you think Angel had to leave? I made him." Buffy replied. "I couldn't even look at them, let alone find out if they were boys or girls. I can't even remember their birthday! And about mom? Don't you think I wish I had? She died without ever knowing about them- her own grandchildren. I've spent the last four years wishing I had told her and everyone else."

Once again, Buffy was sobbing. Faith moved onto the other side of the pained Slayer and in an unusual moment of compassion, gave the other woman a quick hug. Even Xander felt horribly for his best friend. Dawn, however, continued her "attack".

"Is that any excuse? Did you even think about your kids? You left them without a mom, Buffy. How is that fair?" she asked.

"Dawn." Giles said sharply.

"What? You don't agree with me?" Dawn retorted.

"Yo, chill mini-B, she's hurting right now." Faith told her.

"So?" Dawn asked.

"Faith, she has a right to ask. I've asked myself the same thing anyway. And Dawn, it's not fair, the same way Mom leaving us wasn't fair. It just happened anyway." Buffy said quietly.

That struck the core of the matter in one simple sentence. Dawn was reflecting the loss of her own mother with the twins' loss of theirs, a theory proven by the way Dawn deflated as suddenly as she had begun accusing Buffy. Dawn crumpled up and crawled into Buffy's lap as if she was still a little girl. Soon, both Summers women were crying, and not much later, Willow and the unshakeable Faith had joined in.

"We really need to start hanging out with more guys." Xander told Giles seriously.

"Yes, we really do, especially with all of these new Slayers around. Perhaps Angel has some men working with him." Giles replied just as seriously.

"Yeah, even Dead Boy would've gone crazy again if he had to spend seven years with nothing but women." Xander agreed.

"Shut up." All four girls present said.

The two men did as they were told, but not without exchanging knowing looks. Unconsciously, Xander was adopting the Denial Philosophy, a.k.a. Sunnydale's Second Most Popular Mental Problem. It was right up there with Sunnydale's Number One Mental Problem, a.k.a. Suicidal Compulsions To: A. end or B. save the world. Unfortunately, the problems of those who once resided on the Hellmouth tended to blow up to extraordinary proportions. But the distraction of those same mental issues helped keep everyone from thinking about said ex-Hellmouth. Besides, people's problems were always interesting, and looking back on them, certain insane person tended to laugh their asses off thinking of them. Three guesses who.