Six Years Later...

"Mommy!" Liam yelled as he nudged his mother awake. Buffy groaned as she was met face to face with the five-year-old, her only beacon of light for these past few years.

When Buffy gained consciousness from her attack, she found herself on a musty old mattress surrounded by the essentials: a toilet, shower, a small kitchenette, and a bed. Her captor didn't reveal himself until a day later. He came by only once a week to delivery necessities and take out the trash; but he never stayed for more than a few minutes. Buffy was thankful that that was the extent of his visits. Some people in her situation would have had it much worse. Yet, she was trapped. Trapped inside a metal box, Buffy could not escape despite trying. She had more to live for.

Buffy found out she was pregnant a day before her abduction. It was an unexpected surprise that she was sure Angel would happily embrace. They had talked about children and weren't necessarily trying. Buffy and Angel agreed that if it happened, it happened. It would be a welcomed surprise.

She had planned to give Angel a birthday gift with her pregnancy test when he arrived home from work, but her captor and his female companion, who she had yet to see again, had other plans.

Miraculously, under the conditions she had faced, Buffy gave birth to a healthy, full term baby boy. It was the hardest thing she ever had to do. No doctors. No drugs. And no Angel. Her captor had left her to deal with the birth alone, but did bring clothes, diapers, and blankets for the child leading up to his birth.

When Buffy held him in her arms for the first time, she cried. Lying on the concrete floor alone in a ratty old night gown which was covered in blood was not how her son's birth was supposed to go. In fact, those months leading up to his birth were supposed to be completely different. If it wasn't for the abduction, Buffy would have been married and holding her newborn in the hospital surrounded by friends and family, not the cold metal walls she found herself in.

Those cold metal walls had been her only friend aside from Liam for the past six years. Though it was hard raising a child in these conditions, Liam's birth made Buffy's life in captivity bearable. She had someone to talk to and do activities with. Someone that would love her and always be there for her.

"Mommy," Liam repeated lying down next to his mother. He brushed some loose hair from her face to see her pretty green eyes. "I'm hungry."

"I know, baby, but we're almost out," Buffy explained. Their captor brought them just enough food for the entire week, so it was Buffy's job to properly ration 42 meals between the two of them.

"When will The Master be back?" Liam asked. The Master was a nickname Buffy developed when Liam was a baby to refer to their captor.

"Later tonight, so in the mean time, let's get you ready for the day." Buffy pushed herself up and off the bed, then snatched Liam into her arms causing the boy to squirm and giggle.

She carried him to their makeshift bathroom where they brushed their teeth. Once finished, Liam walked over to the dresser his mom and him shared and picked out their clothes for the day as Buffy went to cook them breakfast. They had one egg in the fridge, two slices of bacon and one piece of bread.

Liam sat down, dressed in his warmest sweater and jeans, at the table with his fork and knife clenched in his hands. "Mom, what day is today?"

The Master had given Buffy a calendar every year to remind her how much of her life has been wasted trapped under his care. Buffy looked at the calendar and sighed at the date. "November 2nd."

Liam noticed the expression on his mother's face. "Why sad Mommy?"

Buffy took a deep breath as she dished her and Liam their breakfast. "Because today marks six years since I've been stuck in here."

"With me!" Liam chimed, stuffing his face with eggs. Though he wasn't out of his mother's stomach at the time, he liked to remind her that he was always there with her, so she was never alone.

"With you," Buffy smiled, tousling his hair. It was getting long again, she would have to cut it soon.

Buffy heard Liam's stomach rumble as he cleaned his plate. She wasn't too hungry and decided to give Liam the rest of their meal. Under the conditions they faced, Liam was becoming too skinny. He needed the food more than she. Liam happily accepted the food and continued to eat while Buffy dressed.

Liam set his plate on the counter and surfed through the old VHS tapes The Master had brought them alongside the large box TV. There was no cable attached to the TV only a tape player. As long as it kept Liam entertained, Buffy didn't care.

As Liam turned on and watched the Disney movie The Beauty and the Beast with his mom, he thought how much their lives resembled the movie. They were both trapped, just like Mrs. Potts, Chip, Belle, Cogsworth, and Lumiere. "Mommy, are we cursed?"

"No, why would you think that?" Buffy wondered where the question had came from. Sure their life sucked, but they were definitely not cursed. Curses weren't real.

"Because we're stuck in here like Mrs. Potts and Chip are stuck as objects." Despite Liam being stunted socially and educationally, he was a very insightful child. Buffy figured he had gotten that quality from Angel. In college, he was always making profound remarks that went over Buffy's head. It's no shock that the gene passed on to their son.

"Why hasn't Daddy come to break the curse?" Liam asked. In the movie, it had taken true love's kiss to break the spell. His mommy and daddy love each other. Liam wondered why his dad hadn't come to kiss his mom so they could go home.

"I don't know, baby, I don't know," Buffy replied. There was a time Buffy had faith that she would escape. Angel was a part of the Sunnydale PD and she believed the cops would find her in no time. Six years had gone by and nothing has happened. No one was coming to save her or Liam from this hell. Why hadn't Angel come, Buffy had asked herself. There was always this morbid thought in the back of her mind where he gave up on them.

"Can you tell me a story about Daddy?" Liam loved to hear stories of his father. Buffy portrayed Angel as a superhero. He fought bad guys and put them away for a very long time.

"Which one?" Buffy had told Liam many stories over the years about Angel. It had broken her heart that they never met, but that didn't stop Buffy from telling her son about his father. A little boy should think well of his father. Though Angel wasn't around, Buffy knew he would have been there for them every step of the way if possible. It was only fair for Liam to know the father that would have loved him.

Liam curled into Buffy's chest and played with her necklace that housed her engagement ring. When she got pregnant and her fingers began to swell, she had taken her ring off and worsen it as a daily reminder that there is hope outside of the metal box. "How did you and Daddy meet?"

Buffy thought back ten years. She was a freshman at UC Sunnydale and he was a cute junior that wanted to help her, but got more than he bargained for. "It was my first day at college. I was trying to find some books at the school's bookstore with my friends, Willow and Xander."

Liam scrunched up his face and laughed. "Xander, that's a funny name."

"Thats your name."

"No, my name is Liam. Just like Daddy." Buffy had named her son after his father. Though he was Angel to her and everybody he knew, Liam was his birth name. When Liam was born, Buffy noticed he shared similar features to his father. She was confident he would grow into a handsome carbon copy of Angel and thought it was only fitting to be named after him.

"Your middle name, sweetie. Liam Alexander O'Connor." Buffy stressed the -xander of Liam's name.

"Oh..."

"Can I get back to my story?"

"Okay."

"Anyway, when I found my books they were on the top shelf and I'm pretty small, so I couldn't reach them, even on my tippy toes. When I turned around I ran into this huge guy and spilled my coffee all over the two of us. I was so embarrassed. Here was this super cute guy who was coming over to help me and I spilled my drink all over us. I used my napkin to clean us both up, but it could do so much. I even tried offered to buy him a new shirt. He told me no thanks and said that taking me on a date would be payment enough."

Liam was sort of paying attention, but got easily bored. He was playing with his mom's hair by the end. "That's a nice story."

"One if my favorites."

"Do you think he will like me?"

"Of course! Who wouldn't like you?" Angel was great with children and Buffy knew how excited he was to start a family with her one day. Any child of theirs would be loved.

"As soon as we get out of here we are going to find Daddy and then you and him will get married and we will live happily ever after." It would be just like the fairytales, Liam thought.

"I hope so, baby." Buffy had told herself the same thing for the past six years, but each day looked bleaker. What if they never get rescued? What if Angel found someone else? A lot could have changed in six years.

Buffy was not going to wait another six years for Angel or somebody else to rescue her. She had used Liam as the excuse stopping her from trying to escape, but they needed to act. He could not continue to grow up being raised in this room; it was unhealthy.

At that moment Buffy made her decision, starting tomorrow they were getting out.