5

Xander was packing. How had he accumulated so much stuff in only 18 months of marriage? he wondered. He would have to get a storage locker or something.

He could hear Dawn crying in her room next door. She had come home to find Buffy screaming at Xander while Xander sat mutely on the couch. Giles stood in the back of the room watching.

"Buffy, you have to calm down. For the baby's sake, if nothing else," Giles finally told her. It was his mention of the baby that had finally given Xander his voice.

"I just wanted to protect you both," Xander said. Buffy and Giles both looked at him in surprise. He had been silent for so long while they both railed at him. "It wasn't supposed to work this way. Faith was only supposed to be dead long enough for another Slayer to be called. So the new Slayer could come here and you and the baby would be safe. And Faith would be alive again."

That was when Buffy had shrieked at him to leave, and Dawn had run up to her room in tears.

Xander wasn't sure what Dawn was most upset about: Faith's death and Xander's involvement in it, or him leaving. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he said automatically. He didn't look up from the box in which he was folding his clothes.

"You must have known she would find out sometime," Giles said from the doorway. Xander looked at him, a shirt in his hands.

"I didn't plan this, Giles," he said. "Or this isn't the way the plan was supposed to go, at least."

"How long have you known?"

"About Faith? Since the night before I told you. Everything was true: Angel called with the news, Buffy didn't know. Everything was true except for how Faith died."

"And that you asked for her to die."

"And that, yeah."

Xander returned to his folding. "Where's Buffy?" he asked the Watcher.

"In the kitchen. Eating damn near everything in sight."

Xander chuckled. "Yeah, she'll be doing more of that…" he stopped. "You'll have to keep an eye on her for me." He looked the Watcher in the eye, voice choked. "I did it because I love her so much, Giles. I thought I could save her."

"By sacrificing someone else?" Giles asked softly.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to work. You remember when the Master drowned Buffy?" Giles expression of pain said he did.

"Kendra was called during those few brief minutes she was dead. Then Faith was called when Drusilla killed Kendra. No new Slayer was called when Buffy died fighting Glory." Xander sighed. "I thought that Faith could die temporarily, just for a few minutes. Then Angel or whoever was with him could bring her back to life with CPR or whatever. We'd have a new Slayer to take over from Buffy. No harm, no foul."

"I'd say this was a pretty big foul," Buffy said from behind Giles. Her eyes and nose were red, but her face was calm.

Giles nodded to his Slayer and her husband and backed out, shutting the door behind him.

"I'll be gone soon, Buffy," Xander said. They could hear the rumble of Giles' voice through the wall, trying to console Dawn.

"If you had known that Faith wouldn't come back; that she would die forever, would you still have done what you did?" Buffy asked him. Her voice was raspy after her screaming fit.

Xander wanted to say 'no.' He knew that that was the word Buffy wanted to hear. But he couldn't.

"Yes. To save you and the baby, yes, I would have knowingly sacrificed Faith."

Her eyes closed.

"I tried to kill her to save Angel. I went with the intention of killing her."

Xander felt his heart leap, but he kept his voice under control. "I know."

"It wasn't right, and this wasn't right either," Buffy said. She looked into his eyes.

"I know."

"I guess we both have to accept things about each other that we'd rather not," Buffy said.

"Well, you do leave a lot of wet towels lying around," Xander said. Buffy gave him a half-smile.

"You actually asked Angel for help?" she said.

"Yeah. It wasn't a lot of fun. He threatened to send me home to you in a box."

"So he won't be Uncle Angel, then?"

She stepped closer to him and he put his arms around her, feeling the growing bump of her stomach against him.

"Who can say?"

"Giles told me a couple of days ago the new Slayer and her Watcher should be here within the week."

"And?"

"And I am taking a role in training her and will officially be off Chosen One duties as soon as Giles judges her ready."

Xander sighed.

"I'm thinking if the baby is a boy, we should name him Angel."

"And for a girl?" Xander asked, even though he knew.

"Faith. Her name will be Faith."

FIN