It was late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Felipe was decorating the Christmastree in the library. Usually he did it together with Diego, but Don Alejandro had given the servants the night off, and now he had needed a hand in the corral with something. So now he had only Victoria watching him and fingering the ornaments in the boxes.

"There is not much else I can do nowadays," she moaned as she shifted her position a little. "Just watch what everyone is doing and long for the day I´ll be able to do all those simple things again myself..." She picked up the little miniature Zorro Felipe had carved a few years ago, and smiled. "I like the way you put up the people of the pueblo in your Christmastree," she added. "It´s like you want them all to be part of your lives, even at Christmas."

Felipe nodded. He felt that way, too. "The De la Vega Christmastree is a picture of their grand hearts," he told her. "Everyone is welcome there."

Victoria smiled, but then stifled a cry as one of the babies kicked her in the ribs. She smiled up at him again. Wanly this time. "This big baby-belly is really starting to annoy me... I wish they´d come out now. I´ve had enough." She sighed carefully, ready to receive another kick that didn´t come this time, and shifted again in her chair.

Felipe grinned, and with a mischievous twinkle in his eye he said: "You know, we should have let you play Mother Mary in the Christmas pageant this year. You´d be perfect!"

"No, thank you very much," Victoria sighed until her breath caught because of another internal baby-kick. "Sitting in a chair is about all I can muster these days. Though I´ve never realized before what it must have been for Mother Mary to travel all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem with a heavy baby-belly like this. Although..." she added pensively, "she was carrying the absolute sweetest, most perfect baby ever to be born of course. Instead of two wild anklebiters like these two De la Vega´s. Sometimes I wonder if they are practicing their father´s acrobatics or something in there. I bet the little baby Jesus never kicked his mother in the ribs."

Felipe nodded. "Sure. But on the other hand: I think Mother Mary would have preferred to have her baby in a soft and comfortable bed like yours. Or are you following her example and giving birth in the stables, too? Next to Toronado´s stall perhaps?"

Victoria chuckled, but it quickly stopped short and she wrapped her arms around her belly. Her face showed a frowned concentration.

"What is it? Are you okay?" Felipe signed anxiously.

"Yeah, I´m allright," she fought out between gritted teeth. "Just one of those cramps again..."

He watched her in concern, but after a few tense minutes her muscles relaxed again and she smiled up at him. Rather wanly again, he thought, but she said happily: "They´re just letting us know that they won´t be so long now, Felipe!"

He nodded, but then an urgent knock was heard on the front door, and he hurried to open it. It was sergeant Mendoza, and he looked distressed.

"Felipe! Is Zorro... I mean: is Don Diego in?"

Felipe nodded, and took the sergeant to the corral at the side of the hacienda. Victoria was actually glad to see them go, for yet another fierce cramp had grasped her belly and made her groan with pain. ´If these are only innocent cramps... what would real contractions be like?´ she shuddered.

In the meantime, sergeant Mendoza was spilling his story to Don Diego and Don Alejandro: "Don Diego, I´m sorry it´s Christmas Eve, but we need Zorro´s help! Little Martina has been kidnapped by a guy dressed as father Christmas!"

Don Alejandro raised his eyebrows. "Dressed as father Christmas?! What a mean thing to lure a kid like that!"

"When did this happen?" Diego wanted to know. "And how old is this Martina, sergeant?"

"Six. Seven, I believe. Don Lorenzo´s little girl; you know her! The little blond one!"

"Was there only this one kidnapper?"

"No. The lancers found their tracks. There are probably four of them. Please, Don Diego, let Zorro come and help us! We don´t want the child to get hurt!"

Diego´s mouth was a grim line as he nodded. "You can count on me, sergeant. Felipe, saddle Toronado, please; I´ll be with you in a minute. Sergeant, in which direction are they gone?"

"We´ve been following them out west."

"Okay. You go back to the lancers; I´ll catch up with you."

He ran off into the house, bursted through the library and disappeared into the secret cave without even acknowledging Victoria. Toronado may have moved to an ordinary stable, but he still kept his Zorro-outfit in the old cave. And he needed that outfit when he was chasing bandits with Mendoza. When examined logically, this was plain nonsense of course. He had been contemplating about it many times these past months, for he had always prided himself on being unsusceptible to superstition. But the fact of the matter was that he really did feel more confident in battle when wearing his mask and his black outfit than in ordinary caballero clothes. So he quickly changed his clothes and rushed back into the library.

This time he did see Victoria, and he stopped short to give her a quick kiss.

"An emergency?" she enquired.

"Yes. Felipe will explain. I love you."

"Be careful!" she called after him, but his black figure had already disappeared.

Moaning she shifted again in her chair. "Yeah, that´s right... You go running off again, and I´m stuck here with this horrendous baby-belly. When are you finally going to stay with me and take on your share of this agonizing business?" She grinned involuntarily. That´s right: Diego had hardly dared to leave the hacienda these past weeks, afraid as he was to miss his children being born. So that reproof of him always running off was rather misplaced... to put it mildly. And his continuous attempts to help her and support her were driving her so crazy that sometimes she just wanted to jump at his throat to make him stop. If only she could! Jump at anything, that is. Oh, this horribly heavy belly...!

She shifted again. Somehow she couldn´t seem to find a comfortable position at all tonight. There was always some piece of baby pushing against a sensitive spot, and if that wasn´t enough, her back was strongly protesting against the heavy load she was carrying, too. Okay, it had been protesting for weeks now, but it seemed worse this evening. And then those blasted cramps attacking her out of nowhere all the time...

She winced; the mere thought of those painful cramps seemed to have called out another one. Moaning with pain she tried to wrap her arms around her entire belly as the cramps grew stronger and stronger. But she couldn´t; her arms didn´t make it around the huge curve. She could only sit there, hugging herself, hoping the pain would subside soon this time. Oh, Diego...! If only she could take refuge in his strong embrace... Feel his arms around her, assuring her that she would be allright...

xxxxx

Toronado raced over the uneven terrain. He didn´t hesitate to put down his feet; the dark didn´t bother him. He knew every rock and every little pit here; it was his home. He had ridden his master here so often; he could safely say he knew this part of the world like the back of his hoof.

Zorro felt he could relax on the stallion´s back. He felt one with the horse, as he always had riding Toronado. It felt good. Perhaps he should go out riding more often, even these days. Just to let go of some tension. He´d hardly left the hacienda these past weeks, afraid as he was that the babies might come while he was away. He bit his lip for a moment: what if they were to come tonight, while he was out chasing those bandits? But he quickly scolded some sense into his brain: "It would be an extremely rare coincidence for those two to come out this one night that I´m away," he told himself.

No, it was good to get out for a change. To let go of some of the tension and frustration he felt, and let off some steam in a good fight. No matter how worthy opponents Felipe and his father were, a friendly game wasn´t quite the same as a serious swordfight.

And it was probably good to get away from Victoria for a few hours, too. They were really getting on each other´s nerves these days. He could easily understand her being so snappy; it couldn´t possibly be easy carrying around that heavy belly 24 hours a day. He did what he could to make her as comfortable as possible, and he tried to comply to her whims whenever he could, but lately it seemed he couldn´t do anything right in her eyes. If he had been his usual calm self, her eternal reproof and outbursts probably wouldn´t have bothered him all that much - not with her present condition in mind. But as it was, he felt like a bundle of nerves himself, too... And that didn´t go very well with Victoria´s present state of mind: again and again he found himself yelling back at her; they were often quarreling as soon as they got in each other´s sight. He could only hope that it would be over when those babies would finally be born and things would get back to normal.

He felt a nauseating cramp in his stomach. It was becoming a matter of days now. Any day now he could become a father. A father! Would he be any good at being a father? Everyone kept telling him what a wonderful job he had done with Felipe. But the truth of the matter was, that Felipe had been some seven years old already when he had found him, and it had been his father who had taken care of him those years he had been in Madrid. What would it be like to be responsible for a child - two children! - from the very beginning? How was he supposed to lead them to grow up to be good and responsible people? To be honest, he didn´t have a clue... All he could do was praying sincerely that he´d take after his own father when it came to parenting...

xxxxx

He quickly caught up with sergeant Mendoza, and a little later they joined the group of lancers. They rode on together as quickly as they could, following the tracks, while Mendoza took the opportunity of filling Zorro in on the details of the kidnapping. Obviously, the bandits were after a ransom.

"We´ll get the girl out of their clutches without paying a centavo, sergeant," Zorro promised grimly, "and those bandits will be behind bars before they know the word of it."

He rode on in silence. But part of his mind was busy with the future again. What if some bandit would come and kidnap his children one day? He felt a fiery hatred blossing up inside him... he felt he could kill the man who would dare to touch one single hair on their heads!

He realized that he had voiced those thoughts before. In that discourse with the alcalde, at the time when the possibilities of De Soto harming his child were still horribly realistic. Fortunately, he didn´t have to fear any trouble from that side anymore. And for a moment he wondered if every father felt that way about his children. Would his own father have thought that way when he was a child? Would Don Lorenzo like nothing better right now than to get his hands on this father Christmas-guy and strangle him after he had gotten little Martina in safety?

"Ssht!" corporal Sepulveda hissed up front.

A tiny thread of smoke could be seen against the night-sky, originating from behind a few minor hills. Instantly, all Zorro´s instincts awakened. "I´ll go and check it out. Stay behind me. I´ll whistle if I need immediate assistance."

Carefully he steered Toronado toward the hills. He left him at the foot of the hills, and hidden by the darkness he crept forward around the first hill. The valley behind it was empty, so he continued to the next. And indeed: there they were. Four men were gathered around a small camp-fire, toasting and laughing and wishing each other a merry Christmas. A few meters away from them lay a little white bundle. It was rolling around desperately, trying to free itself from its bonds.

"That´s a brave little one," Zorro thought by himself. And he couldn´t help wishing for his own soon to be born children to grow up to be equally brave.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had to concentrate on this little one now; when she was safe, there´d be time enough again to daydream about all the things he would do with his own children when they would have grown a little bigger. Right now he needed a waterproof plan to get little Martina out of the bandits´ clutches without putting her in unnecessary danger.

xxxxx

"Victoria, dear, are you allright?"

Don Alejandro was helping Felipe to finish decorating the Christmastree when he suddenly became aware of Victoria continually shifting in her chair.

Victoria moaned slightly in response. "It´s my back. It´s killing me. I don´t know how to sit anymore," she complained, close to tears.

He sat down beside her and put his arm around her. "Why don´t you go and lie down for a while then," he kindly suggested.

But she shook her head. "That´s even worse," she got out between gritted teeth. But the next moment she drew in her breath and Don Alejandro felt how her whole body tensed as she wrapped her arms around her grotesque baby-belly again.

"Another cramp?" Felipe asked.

Victoria didn´t answer. She just sat there, hugging herself, groaning. And Don Alejandro and Felipe looked at each other. Neither of them was sure of what to do.

Finally, Victoria started to relax a little, and she opened her eyes again. A weak smile spread across her face as she brushed away an unspilled tear. "These horrible cramps all the time..." she panted quavery.

She tried to stretch her back, and groaned. She shifted in her chair, and again, and again, to perhaps find a somewhat less uncomfortable position. She tried to lean forward a little, but a fierce kick in the ribs made her gasp for breath and sit up again with a start. Panting, she tried to curve her back a little instead, but that cost her a kick in the stomach that made her cry out with pain. Shifting, stretching, and then yet another cramp took hold of her belly.

Don Alejandro and Felipe had watched all this with growing concern. And as they heard Victoria moan with pain under this next cramp, suddenly the truth hit Don Alejandro.

"Madre de Dios," he whispered under his breath. He turned pale. "Victoria, you´re not going to give birth now, are you? Are the babies coming?"

Felipe´s eyes widened, but Victoria only groaned in reply. When the pain finally subsided and he asked her again, she looked rather doubtful though. "I´ve had these cramps every now and then for a couple of days now. And nothing much happened," she told Don Alejandro when she had regained her breath.

"Yes, but not as bad as this!" Don Alejandro insisted.

"And they´re coming pretty close now," Felipe added - out of curiosity, he, too, had leafed through a few of Diego´s gynaecological books lately. "They might be serious contractions instead of innocent cramps as you call them."

He didn´t get a reply, for Victoria´s face twisted in pain as the next cramp hit her belly.

"That´s it," Don Alejandro decided. "As soon as this one´s over, we´ll put you to bed and Felipe will go and get the doctor and señora Sanchez."

"Dr. Hernandez is out of town, visiting his daughter in Santa Paula for the holidays," Felipe reminded him.

"That´s true. Well, then señora Sanchez will have to do. And we´ll have to get Diego back, too. I wouldn´t want him regretting missing his own children being born, like me." He felt Victoria relaxing again under his arm. "Come on, my dear. Off to bed with you."

Victoria groaned. "Do I have to? There is no way I can lie comfortably anymore."

"You just told us you couldn´t sit anymore either, so that should make little difference. Felipe, give us a hand, will you?"

Victoria struggled to get up with their help. But as soon as they started walking towards the bedroom, she cried out and looked down. Not that she could look around her belly, but both Felipe and Don Alejandro followed her gaze and stared at the puddle forming at her feet.

"This is it!" Victoria whispered excited. "My water broke: I´m in labour! The babies are coming...! Finally!"

Don Alejandro winced. But then he ordered Felipe: "I´ll take care of Victoria. You find Miguel and tell him to get señora Sanchez here immediately! And you go after Diego and tell him to come home! Now!"

But Felipe shook his head. "None of the servants is in. You gave them the night off because it´s Christmas Eve, remember?"

"Blast!" Don Alejandro cursed. But he felt Victoria shriveling up with pain again under the next attack of contractions, and he had to support her with all his might to keep her on her feet.

"I´ll go and get señora Sanchez myself, and then go after Diego!" Felipe decided quickly.

He ran off, and Don Alejandro called after him: "Take a fast horse! Amaranto! Or Valentino! And for God´s sake: hurry!!"