Moment of Truth – XLVII

Two weeks later...

The scheduled span of Giles and Willow's visit to England had come and gone by three days, with no signs of either returning imminently. As Dawn's due date drew nearer and more of Sunnydale's residents fell victim to suspicious deaths, Buffy finally began to lean towards panic. It was a move that both Xander and Angel supported whole heartedly, and one that the Slayer herself was grappling with on a daily basis.

Increased patrols and regular visits to underworld sources had proven fruitless, and a generally tense air had settled over the town of Sunnydale. The vampire population had appeared to dwindle, although this could have perhaps been due to the fact that the residents of Sunnydale were for once keeping off the streets after darkness descended. For the first time ever, the people of Sunnydale seemed to have noted that something odd was occurring in their sleepy little town. Even The Bronze had closed its doors indefinitely, and Buffy was reminded of the time that Sunnydale had been abandoned right before the entire zip code had been swallowed by an earthquake.

Everyone was decidedly jumpy, Dawn perhaps more so than most given that she was now estimated to be approximately four weeks away from giving birth. Buffy thought that must be a daunting enough prospect in itself without the added stress of a mystical as of yet unravelled prophecy attached to the baby in question.

Whilst Spike walked around with a permanent smile glued to his face, Dawn lived out each day with her eyes frozen wide in terror. Buffy did what she could to allay her little sister's fears, including watching birthing DVDs with Dawn that she had checked out of the local library. However, this appeared to have had the opposite effect on Dawn, who had shut herself in the bathroom for an hour following claiming that the baby would simply have to stay where it was. Truth be told, the scenes they had witnessed on the screen had made even Buffy the Vampire Slayer wince, and she was more than accustomed to dealing with a generous helping of blood, guts and bodily fluids. For the first time in a long time, Buffy genuinely pitied her little sister.

Dawn had decided that the baby would be born in the local hospital, where she intended to surround herself with as many drugs as humanly possible. Since Dawn had been known to pop an Asprin for as little as a stubbed toe, Buffy did not doubt the seriousness of her sister's statement. Dawn had also requested that Buffy attend the birth, given the fact that she was unsure as to how controlled Spike could remain around that much blood. Buffy had hesitantly agreed and was currently in the process of praying for some act of divine intervention to save her from the commitment. Little did Buffy realise that she would get her wish sooner rather than later.

Almost everyday that Giles had been away, Buffy had driven the short distance across town to his apartment in order to collect his mail, water those plants which were not rubber, and throw far too many fish flakes into his aquarium. These were tasks that Buffy completed more to keep her own mind occupied as opposed to prove any real help to Giles, who undoubtedly feared that he would return to vast quantities of lost mail, and to find that a wave of death had swept through his apartment. No matter how hard Giles attempted to dissuade Buffy against her 'helpful' visits, she maintained them nonetheless.

On this particular morning, Buffy had been shocked when Dawn had waddled her way downstairs and insisted on accompanying her sister about her daily activities. Knowing that Dawn would only wallow in self pity on the couch otherwise, Buffy agreed and the sisters planned an impromptu trip to the movies followed by dinner. Therefore, it was with slightly higher spirits that Buffy set about drowning the first of Giles' many rare and expensive plants in water and plant feed.

When the telephone rang suddenly, shattering the quiet of the apartment to oblivion, Buffy jumped and the jug of water she had been holding clattered from her hand. Water spilled across the tiled floor and Buffy uttered a low curse, realising that she had also soaked her newest pair of suede boots. Dawn shot her sister a surprised look from her position on the couch, and simply watched as Buffy picked her way almost tentatively towards the phone.

"Hello?" Buffy inquired as she retrieved the phone from its cradle. Her tone wavered with uncertainty. Dawn's gaze remained trained on her sister's face and Buffy turned her back as she was overcome by discomfort. "Rupert Giles' residents how may..."

"Buffy?"

Both Buffy and Dawn visibly relaxed as the sound of Giles' familiar and warm voice permeated the air. Dawn returned her attention to the home decor magazine she had discovered atop the coffee table, deliberately buried, whilst Buffy cupped her hand around the receiver.

"Giles... how come you're calling yourself?" she inquired, her nose wrinkling as she contemplated this. Buffy heard Giles tut and could almost imagine him rolling his eyes at her banal question.

"I called your house and received no answer, and since your cell phone spends more time turned off in the bottom of your handbag, I thought it perhaps prudent to try my luck here," Giles explained coolly, although something about his tone seemed almost urgent to Buffy. She stood up a little straighter and began to cross the lounge towards the bedroom, where she knew that Dawn was unlikely to overhear the conversation. Attempting to retain a casual air, Buffy giggled into the receiver, directed a smile at Dawn, and then disappeared into the master bedroom. She closed the door behind her and sank onto the edge of Giles' king size bed, her stomach churning.

"What's up, Giles?" Buffy asked, her tone suddenly switching now that Dawn was positioned safely out of ear shot. "I'm guessing this isn't just a social call."

"Unfortunately not," Giles replied, and Buffy was momentarily taken aback by the weariness that broke through his words. Evidently, whatever Giles was doing, he was working hard at it and affording himself little rest in the process.

"Is this about the prophecy?" pressed Buffy, lowering her voice to a whisper as she added, "or my deal?"

"I am not entirely sure if I am to be honest," said Giles with a sigh, and Buffy cocked her head in a questioning manner before realising that Giles could not see her. Embarrassment prickled at her but Buffy brushed it aside.

"What does that mean?" Buffy inquired, beginning to grow increasingly uncomfortable with the direction in which the conversation was heading. She hated feeling so utterly helpless and was in secret relying on the coven for whatever information they promised to yield; so far, that was nothing much beyond reiterating the fact that Dawn's baby would indeed be human.

"Willow had a dream," Giles began, hesitating for a moment. Buffy could hear a second, more hushed voice offering some input to the conversation, and Giles making quiet noises of agreement in his throat.

"What's going on, Giles?" demanded Buffy, struggling now to keep her voice to a minimum. She had no wish to panic Dawn anymore than she was already, and Buffy knew without a doubt that any talk of the prophecy would not fail to do so.

"The coven is still working with her in an attempt to decipher its true meaning. Dreams are often not what they immediately seem, and so this one is posing quite the problem given the nature of all that is on Willow's mind at present," Giles explained. Buffy fell silent, mulling over his statement that had shed little light on his reason for calling.

"What did she see?" Buffy finally managed, her throat growing unbearably tight in the few moments of silence that followed. A sigh from Giles, the faint sounds of stirring in the lounge, and Buffy waited with baited breath for an answer that it seemed would never arrive.

"The birth of Dawn's baby," murmured Giles, and Buffy was forced to strain to decipher his next words. "There will be a battle that you can perhaps not hope to win without casualties."

Buffy almost felt her own heart shudder to a halt in her chest, and it was several painful seconds before she released a sharp intake of breath and came to life once again.

"Giles, who died?" Her voice was even, almost calm, and the sound of it surprised Buffy herself. In that moment however, calm was all she had.

There was a pause, so tense and unbearable that nausea assaulted Buffy until she thought she may actually lose the content of her stomach on Giles' Egyptian cotton sheets.

"Everyone."

There was an audible crash from the lounge and, before Buffy had time to react, Dawn's plaintive cry reached her ears.

x-x-x

Dawn folded her arms across her chest as best she could given her seemingly ever expanding stomach. Her narrowed eyes followed Buffy's figure as she retreated into Giles' bedroom, and the quiet click that the door made as it closed alerted Dawn to the fact that she could not hope to overhear anything of merit. Buffy's insistence on keeping every little thing a secret lately was beginning to grind on Dawn's nerves but, for the sake of their recently repaired relationship, she refrained from comment or complaint. However, Dawn was unsure of just how long she could maintain this level of self control since, as her due date advanced, she found her temper growing ever shorter.

Whilst Spike was viewing the baby's impending arrival with an almost manic kind of anticipation, Dawn was contemplating it with nothing but dread weighing heavily on her mind. She was not a fan of pain and, despite the reassurances of many of her friends' mothers, Dawn had come to realise that she was in for agony of the earth shattering kind. The DVD that she had rented from the local library had done nothing to assuage her fears and had rather counter-productively simply made her want to hurl. Dawn had wondered how anyone could find something so brutally graphic helpful, and had practically thrown the DVD at the librarian upon returning it. The particularly nasty curl of her lip had seen the woman shrinking back behind the desk, hopefully making a mental note to never again recommend such a rental to a woman in Dawn's condition.

Dawn shifted in her position on the couch, groaning as a sharp pain stabbed at her back; she attempted to return her attention to the magazine she had been leafing through but the print on the page blurred unhelpfully in a testament to her exhaustion. Indeed, she had been awake since almost three am when the niggling ache in her back had finally proven too great to ignore. Pacing the floor had not helped nor had arranging pillows around her lower body in a kind of cocoon, and so Dawn had resigned herself to the fact that she would not be returning to sleep, and instead climbed into a warm bath. Thus, she had been washed and dressed by six am and in a relatively foul mood when Buffy had happened upon her some time later.

Dawn was fed up to say the least, and not even the prospect of dinner and a movie with her sister had succeeded in lifting her mood much. She longed for her pregnancy to be over and the very idea that she still had another month of torment to endure was enough to move Dawn to tears.

Hearing a crash from somewhere outside and the howls of a dog beginning to rise on the evening air, Dawn heaved herself up from the couch and lumbered towards the window. She doubted that she would find anything of interest outside but the pain in the base of her spine seemed to recede just a little when she was standing, and so Dawn proceeded to shuffle across the room. Suddenly, her cell phone began to vibrate from its position in her jeans pocket, and Dawn slipped it out with some difficulty in order to examine the screen. Seeing Spike's name flashing up on the display, and anticipating another round of nagging regarding the pre-natal vitamins that Dawn had once again neglected to take, she stabbed the power button on her phone, sending the call straight to voicemail. Huffing a sigh, Dawn reached across to part Giles' curtains and, in the next instant, the streetlights outside flickered then died. Inexplicably, Dawn shuddered, feeling the baby shift within her as though it too sensed something amiss. Dropping her hand to the bulge of her stomach, Dawn rubbed soothing circles, smiling at the responding pressure to the touch of her fingertips. She knew that everything would prove worthwhile in the end.

Thankful that it had not yet grown dark enough to warrant indoor lighting, Dawn squinted as she peered through the glass. The doors of the neighbouring homes appeared to be opening one by one, and Dawn watched with a frown as the families inside spilled out onto the streets. They moved slowly and apparently with no sense of urgency. No words were exchanged as far as Dawn could tell, but the residents seemed united in their destination. Dawn watched silently and with mounting alarm as Giles' neighbours turned towards his apartment building and began to march steadily onwards. As they drew closer, Dawn was just about able to make out the vacant expressions that dominated each and every face. For just the briefest of moments, she was reminded of the battle that had occurred in L.A. just before Angel had been made human, and Dawn's heart began to pick up speed in her chest.

She swallowed hard, suddenly nauseas, and pressed a palm to the spot on her back that still ached relentlessly. It was then that Dawn noted the appearance of their eyes; each and everyone stared ahead, unblinking, unseeing, and milky white. Dawn stumbled back from the window, knocking over a tall vase in the process, and allowed the curtain to fall from her hand. The startled yelp she had intended to release stuck in her throat, almost causing her to choke.

Dawn jammed her hand back into her pocket, ferreting around for her cell phone, and in her panic failing to register the sudden popping sensation in her abdomen; that was, until the crotch of Dawn's jeans began to darken, and she felt the unpleasant and alien sensation of a rush of fluid leaving her body.

Dawn's hand fluttered to her mouth and, through the fingers she pressed to her own lips, she managed to call out for her sister. It was several seconds before Buffy finally appeared in the lounge, the telephone still poised at her ear, although Dawn could hear the distinct sound of the dialling tone.

"Dawn..." Buffy breathed, relief flooding her features as she scanned her sister's albeit pale face. "What is it?"

Dawn pointed a shaking finger to the window whilst simultaneously motioning to the front of her soaking wet trousers. Buffy let out an audible gasp as understanding dawned upon her.

"There are freaky, possessed looking people outside," Dawn sobbed in explanation, "and I think my waters just broke."

Buffy stared in abject horror at her sister for a moment, phone clutched so tightly that her knuckles whitened, and her own knees feeling so weak that they threatened to buckle at any moment. Panic washed over her in great waves that she was unsure as to whether she could hold at bay for long.

Dawn simply watched Buffy through wide eyes, waiting for some instruction or for the Slayer to leap into action and save the day as she always did. Buffy, however, remained frozen.

That what was when the vicious pounding on the front door began.