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What a Mother Wouldn't Do	By : QueenB Category: -Buffy the Vampire Slayer > Het - Male/Female > Buffy/Giles Views: 5213 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Giles sat with Buffy between his spread legs. “Breathe, dearest.”
Her back was tense against his fingers. “What do you think I’m trying to do?” She puffed exaggeratedly to show how hard she was working at this.
“No, just relax.” He swept his other hand in slow circles over her bulging abdomen and felt her ease minutely under his attentions. “Just follow my lead.” He sucked in a breath and then let it out in three short bursts to tickle the back of her neck.
Immediately she flinched and glared over her shoulder at him. “Stop blowing on me!” she hissed.
He sighed and smiled at the couple next to him in apology. “Do forgive us. First baby and all that.”
The Lamaze instructor looked over at them and smiled encouragingly. “That’s all right, Mr. Giles. This isn’t a pass or fail class. The baby will come regardless of what you do. But it helps if you learn to regulate your breathing.” Ms. Abbott raised her voice. “Once more, people. Find your center and relax. Quick breaths followed by a ‘push push.’”
Buffy hated this. Couldn’t they practice this at home? But when she and Giles got home alone and rested next to each other, they usually got sidetracked into other activities involving heavy breathing and actual birthing practices flew out the window.
So Giles thought it would be a good idea to take classes. It seemed stupid to her. People had been giving birth--well, women had been giving birth--since forever. Who needed a class to do something other people did naturally? She’d teased Giles that he was just taken in by the teaching aspect. He pointed out that he’d never been a teacher so that couldn’t be a draw. Then she’d retaliated by saying he just liked the idea of anything in a classroom because it reminded him on Sunnydale High.
Giles had replied, yes, that vanished edifice conjured up so many fond memories for him: getting knocked unconscious by Gwendolyn Post, having Oz shut up in a cage month after month, fighting the Master’s minions, etc. Buffy’s pout had appeared and she’d asked whether there hadn’t been any good memories at all. He’d caught her meaning and bent to kiss her. Conversation had kinda stopped after that.
Now she was on her butt between Giles’s long, stretched out legs trying to breathe. She shifted to get more comfortable. The baby kicked as if protesting the movement and she felt Giles gasp softly at the movement under his hand. Instantly all her irritation vanished. She learned back against him and smiled into his face. “Feel that? Little Theora’s getting all frisky. She doesn’t like this stupid breathing stuff either.”
“Maybe Alan is sensing his mother’s anxiety,” Giles teased. After sorting through dozens of children’s names (some suggested by Anya and unanimously rejected), they had settled on Theora, which meant “Watcher or contemplator” for a girl and Alan for a boy meaning “handsome, cheerful, harmonious one.” They still wanted to be surprised about the child’s sex and using the children’s names in conversation had become just another part of playful conversation.
His wife wriggled her shoulders and sat up again. “All right, all right. See Buffy relaxing. Relax, Buffy, relax.” She took a deep breath and let it out in the required rapid puffs.
Ms. Abbot smiled over at them. “That’s excellent, Buffy.” She looked around at the other members of the class. “How many have considered water births as I suggested in our last class?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Giving birth in water like a fish? No thanks. Not really feeling the urge to submerge. Humanity crawled out of the primal sludge ages ago and that was a good move, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Now, now, Mrs. Giles,” Ms. Abbott chided. “The weightlessness of the water actually makes birthing easier both on the mother and child and the swimming feeling is enough like the womb to reduce the trauma a child normally experiences at birth.”
“What’s she talking about?” Buffy muttered sotto voce. “I came into this world in a hospital and I don’t remember trauma. Next she’ll be saying I suffered post-birth psychic damage. She should try digging her way out of her own grave sometime.”
Her husband gave a swift peek around to make sure no one overheard that last remark. “Now’s not the time, Buffy.”
“Gotcha.” She grimaced and forced herself to follow the rest of the class. She shouldn’t be fighting Ms. Abbott like this. The exercises did help with the tight feeling around her belly and once she got into them, the physical tension let up considerably.
Still, the classes didn’t help with all the tension. The desire to slay would rush over her frequently and it was all she could do to restrain herself from rushing out at nights. The Scoobies were filling in for her as Giles had instructed. But she’d been a Slayer for so long, it was like an itch over her skin. She hated giving it up, even for the duration of her pregnancy, and holding herself back drove her wild. She didn’t even have her martial arts class to take off the edge. Fortunately she had Giles to watch over her--and put up with her increasingly bad mood swings.
Finally the tedious business of breathing and fake pushing was over and she sighed in relief. Her husband (a word she still turned over in her mind with a sense of giddy wonder) helped her up and they gathered their things in preparation to leave. Once outside, Giles walked over to his car and frowned, an irritated cluck emerging from his teeth.
“What is it, Rupert?”
“Some inconsiderate prat has pasted one of those annoying flyers underneath my windshield wiper,” he replied. Snatching it off, he crumpled it and tossed the offending bit of paper into a trash receptacle.
An angry cry burst from behind him. “Hey! What’s the matter with you? You could at least look at it, you know! I went to a lot of trouble to get those printed up.” Buffy spun around at the hostile tones, cursing under her breath as her broad belly turned the usually smooth movement into an awkward wobble.
They found themselves confronting a distracted-looking woman. She was clutching a sheaf of papers in one arm and plucked the crumpled bit of paper from the trash all the while glaring at Giles.
“Madam, we’re not interested in what you’re selling...”
“If you’d looked at the flyer, asshole, you would have realized I’m not selling anything!” She strode towards him, waving the piece of paper in his face. Close up, she looked more than merely distracted. There was a manic intensity to her, fury and anguish in her gaze, as if she were accusing him of something vile.
Buffy shoved her back and gave the woman a glare to match her own. “Watch it, lady. We’ve been having a hard day so just take it easy.”
A man in a worn suit exiting an adjacent store saw the two of them and ran up to the woman, clasping her tightly around the shoulders. “Margie, I thought I told you to wait in the car.” He saw the paper in her hand and tried to pluck it away from her. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled. She shuffled to conceal the papers in her other arm--difficult considering the size of the bulk.
He managed to pry the paper out of her hand and stared at the writing and the picture Giles could make out only vaguely from his upside down point of view. “Honey, I thought we were going to let the police handle this,” the man murmured gently.
“The police in this town are a joke, Arnold, and you know it. They’re not going to find our Rosalind! I just thought...if I put out a few papers, maybe someone, anyone, might have seen her.”
Arnold glanced at Giles and he saw a reflection of the same grief he’d noted in the woman. “That’s, that’s...a good idea, Margie. But go sit in the car, will you? I want to drive us home. We can talk when we get back.”
“Talk about what, Arnold? My child is gone. Talking isn’t going to bring her back. So what do you want to talk about?” Margie clutched the remaining papers tighter and returned to putting them on other windshields, shooting defiant glances at her husband, daring him to stop her.
Both men and the Slayer watched her walk down the street. Then Arnold sighed. “I’m sorry. She’s been like this ever since our kid disappeared almost a month ago.”
“T-that’s so sad,” Buffy murmured. Now that she knew what was bothering Margie, her maternal feelings surged to the fore.
“Your child is missing?” Giles noted the haunted stare, the hollows under the man’s tired, washed-out gray eyes and the stubble on his cheeks that looked as if he hadn’t shaved in days. Arnold was a man in pain and he clearly couldn’t bother to hide it from others.
“Baby. We’d been trying to have one for so long. The doctors had told us it was probably impossible and Margie was getting on in years. I kept going on about getting a surrogate or trying to adopt. But surrogates sometimes get emotionally attached even when they swear they won’t and adoption takes months if not years unless you know somebody who can pull strings.
“With every year that passed the chances of her getting pregnant narrowed from slim to none. But Margie never gave up hope of having the kid herself. Then three months ago, Rosalind was born.”
Arnold smiled and the haunted look he shared with his wife lightened for a brief moment. “She was like a miracle, you know? Coming into our lives when I’d just about thrown in the towel. Our little blessing from God--that’s what Margie called her. I’d secretly hoped for a boy but, after all the years of hoping, praying and planning, I fell in love with her right away. My little girl.
“Then the night Rosalind disappears, Margie jerks awake. She starts shoving me hard, saying something’s in the house with us. I’d been up working hard all day and am in no mood. I mean, I know I promised to help share all the duties when the kid was born. But I’m literally dead on my feet when I came in the door. So I shove her back and tell her to handle it. Besides, I haven’t heard the kid cry and figure she isn’t hungry so why the drama? So Margie gets up and runs down the hall to her room...” His eyes swam and he struggled to get his emotions under control.
Giles shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to hear this; the subject of children hit too close to home and the man’s transparent grief was difficult to bear. But this was important so he steeled himself to continue listening.
“She screams and that wakes me right up, I can tell you. I’m so startled I fall out of bed all tangled up in the in bed sheets. Then I get myself untangled and run after her. She’s standing over the crib, just frozen like a statue, and when I move around her I can see why.”
Arnold paused again, his eyes locked in unseeing blankness on the car. Margie had finished sticking all the flyers onto the available windshields and had returned to vehicle. She was sitting slumped in the passenger seat, the same eerie stillness of her husband in her slumped shoulders.
“The crib’s empty,” Arnold whispered in a dead voice. “The windows are shut and locked; the whole house is locked up for the night. I tell the police I didn’t hear anything. But Margie swears up and down that she’d heard something, felt something in the house. I don’t know what to think. All I know is our little baby is gone.”
Buffy had perked up with the first mention of Margie’s scream. Something about this whole story screamed “demon” and her Slayer instinct immediately kicked into overdrive. At last! Here was a chance to get back in the swing of things. She knew it was wrong to feel this way in the face of this man’s obvious tragedy. But the primordial warrior in her was demanding to be heard.
Arnold rubbed at his face wearily. “Margie keeps pestering the police, asking neighbors and strangers if they’ve seen Rosalind. And now this.” He waved the paper towards Giles and the Englishman plucked it from his unresisting fingers.
On the front was a photocopied picture of the beaming new mother and the swaddled bundle that was her baby. The baby’s hair and eye colors as well as height, weight, age and name were carefully printed below as well as the date of birth.
The child lacked distinguishing features, like so many other babies; he didn’t see any chance of catching the baby snatcher this way. And if it wasn’t due to human agency then the chance of getting the child back alive was slim at best. He said nothing of that to Arnold. The man was distraught enough as it was.
“I’m very sorry for your trouble. But something might turn up. You say it’s only been a month since Rosalind disappeared?”
Arnold nodded, never taking his eyes from the car. “Yeah. But there’s been no ransom note or phone call. The police didn’t find a single print and there was no sign of forced entry. The person who did this didn’t do it to scare us or because they wanted a reward. They wanted Rosalind. They wanted my little girl.”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “The worst of it is...I know Margie blames me. She doesn’t say so out loud but she’s thinking that maybe if I’d gotten up, moved sooner, I could have caught whoever was in the house. She glares at me when she thinks I can’t see and she shrinks away when I try to touch her. It’s been all kinds of hell since--it’s like living with a stranger.”
He heard the rustle of the paper as Giles smoothed out the creases and seemed aware of the Englishman as a person at last. “I-I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this.”
“On the contrary. I-I’m becoming a father myself.” Giles wrapped his free arm around Buffy and Arnold blinked as if noticing her rounded stomach for the first time. “If there’s a danger to newborn babies, I certainly want to hear about it.”
“Likewise,” Buffy chimed in.
Arnold squinted at Giles. “You’re English, ain’t you? You live here or just visiting?”
“My wife is an American. I’ve decided to live here with her.” Giles gazed fondly at Buffy but she didn’t return his look. Instead her eyes were bent intently on Arnold as if she could learn more about Rosalind by penetrating his skull mentally.
“You take my advice and get out of this town. It’s poison to anybody who wants to live here,” Arnold returned bluntly. “I’ve been here for a while now and I’ve heard things and seen things, things you don’t learn about anywhere else. I just turned a blind eye, though; I didn’t want to think about it. We were just starting out in life, Margie and me, and the price of housing here was too good to pass up. So I jumped at the chance to live here and ignored the signs later when things started happening. I shoulda known.”
His shoulders hunched as if fending off an imaginary chill and he trudged to his car. His voice floated back to Giles. “You listen to me, mister, and just get the hell out of Dodge.”
Giles and Buffy stood without speaking and watched them drive away, the paper with Rosalind and Margie’s faces fluttering in the Englishman’s fingers.
__________
Buffy hugged herself around her middle. She’d said little in the car, excitement and shame for the excitement warring in her. Another time she would have been chattering like Willow. Now she was grimly silent.
Giles could guess what was troubling her. “Buffy, it might be nothing.” At her incredulous look, he amended, “All right. This is the Hellmouth. But we should check the papers before doing anything rash. It might be simple human agents at work. There’s no reason at present to believe this is anything other than an ordinary kidnapping. Margie could be overreacting.”
“With no ransom note and a sealed room? Uh uh, Watcher mine. This is the Hellmouth activity channel. All demons all the time. My spidey sense is tingling on this one.”
“Spidey sense?” His mouth twitched slightly.
“You know what I mean.”
Buffy had never managed to hone a sense of vampire presence (although Angel seemed to be the exception). So her “spidey sense” might be at fault. “Yet we should be thorough and certain of our facts before we go charging in.”
“Got it.”
“If it will set your mind at ease, we will alert the others before turning in tonight. They might want to research.”
She smiled slightly, buoyed by the reminder of the old days with Scooby research and pigging out in the old school library. Whoever would have thought she’d miss Sunnydale High? From a distance, even Snyder didn’t seem so bad. Okay, she was definitely losing it if she was getting nostalgic over Snyder the Spider.
“You’re right, Giles. First we get in touch with the others. Then it’s book time. It’ll be just like old times with the Scoobies helping. We can call out for pizza. Or get Xander to bring it. Our place, I guess?”
“Since that is where the books live, most certainly,” he replied, echoing Willow’s phrase.
She sighed and slumped back in her seat. “I guess this means the honeymoon really is over.”
__________
“I still don’t see why we had to get Dawn involved,” Buffy grumbled under her breath to her husband.
“Hello, younger sibling in the room? I can hear you, you know,” Dawn carped. “I’ve known about Hellmouth badness for a while now, Buffy. Too late to play the human shield now. Besides, I’ve finished my homework.”
“And you have school tomorrow. It’s Tuesday, right? Last time I checked that was a school night,” her older sister responded.”
“I’m a big girl, Buffy. Just ask the parents I baby-sit for.”
Giles looked up at that, a book of Indian lore lying across his lap. “Ah, I’m glad you mentioned that. Dawn, you might want to forego any future babysitting activities. Whether we are dealing with human felons or demonic agents, we can’t risk your being hurt if someone intrudes into a household while you’re alone in the house.”
“No way! I’m starting to earn serious money! Besides, a killer would have to be psycho to go into a house with someone on the watch.”
“We may well be dealing with a psychotic personality, a human being that doesn’t think rationally. Lest you forget, Arnold and Margie’s child was snatched from her cradle while her parents lay sleeping in the next room.”
“The big word being sleeping, Giles,” Dawn emphasized. “I won’t be taking the snooze so the kids will be safe with me.”
“And once you leave the house after the parents come back, Dawn? You won’t be able to provide any help then,” Anya said. “There are lots of creatures that like to eat babies and they’re all very sly and cunning since human beings are so protective of their young.” She turned towards Xander. “We need to hold off on having kids until Buffy finds out whatever is causing this. We should be sure to use protection whenever we’re having sex now.”
“You’re having sex again? So you two are back together now, right?” Dawn grinned as Xander’s face began to turn red.
“Which we will immediately stop if certain ex-demons start flapping their gums about it,” the dark-haired man replied, shooting his on-again off-again lover a warning look.
Anya shrugged. “There hasn’t been much sex. Xander’s got this silly idea about taking it slowly and I don’t see the point. We’re not in the preliminary stages of dating and sex was part of our relationship right from the start when I came into his parents’ basement and dropped my--”
“Wine bottle!” Xander yelled.
“What? What are you talking about? You were holding the--”
“Willow, have you turned up anything on the Internet about baby snatchers?” Giles interjected, cutting her off. He didn’t miss Xander’s grateful look and met it with a sympathetic gaze. It looked like they were back to the bad times when Anya would babble about her sexual activities at the drop of a, um, wine bottle, as it were. Maybe they had been too hasty in getting them back together.
The former Watcher sighed. No good deed went unpunished.
Willow ignored the interchange, having tuned Anya out as usual. “You threw out all your old newspapers so I had to dig up what I could find in back issues on the ‘net. There are some articles--really, really tiny ones--about babies disappearing. They’re going at the rate of one every two months--sometimes less.” She looked up, an unhappy frown marring her pretty face. “They’re all real young, between seven to ten months old.”
“None older than a year?” Giles inquired.
“That let’s out most vampires,” Anya stated. “They wouldn’t really want babies. There isn’t a lot of blood in them at all. They say babies are like Chinese food: eat one and an hour later you’re hungry again.”
“And the prize for most icksome statement goes once again to Anya,” Buffy said with a grimace.
“Hey, you called me here to help so I’m helping. I didn’t have to come here, you know. I could be home having Xander provide me with orgasms again.” Anya wound her arms around Xander, a self-righteous glare directed at the Slayer.
“And we’re much appreciative of your help, Anya,” Giles replied in an attempt to soothe her feelings. At Giles’s urging, she was providing him with a list of the many baby-eating demons she’d encountered or heard about in her long career as a Vengeance demon. The list was disturbingly long and every few minutes she kept on jumping up and adding a new one that she’d forgotten.
He’d read of some of these creatures while a member of the Watchers Council. Others were completely foreign to him. He was trying to cross-reference them with his books since Anya hadn’t really met all these supernatural entities. She possessed vague descriptions or none at all on a few of them, being aware of them only by reputation and third-person hearsay. This could prove more difficult than he thought.
Buffy was mulling something over in her mind. “Willow, you said the disappearances are about two months or less apart.”
The redhead nodded. “Uh huh.”
“Arnold said his baby was taken a month ago. Right, Giles?”
“Correct, Buffy.”
“So another’s due to be snatched any day now.” Buffy pulled herself up from the chair and waddled to the laptop. “Will, we should check hospital records. See if there are any babies still in the hospital. We could post a stakeout.”
But Willow was already shaking her head. “I think that’s kind of pointless, Buff. So far, these babies have disappeared from homes. None have been snatched from the hospital.”
“Maybe the beastie doesn’t want to deal with hospital security. I remember those bad boys were enough to scare off Deadboy,” Xander said.
“Hospital security scared off Angel? Since when, Xander?” Buffy knew that Angel had carried her to the hospital after he’d bitten her. Why would they scare him?
“Oh, I’m not talking about him so much as his gruesome alter ego.”
“Angelus? Why would Angelus run from hospital security guards?” Giles asked.
Xander still got a tight feeling in his belly whenever he remembered that. The fear that Angelus would rip his head off, the rage that the arrogant jerk felt he could simply waltz in and hurt Buffy and the inevitable hurt at the idea that Buffy still loved the monster even after everything he’d done--the feelings never went away no matter how many years passed.
But now she was with Giles. So everything had turned out for the best after all. He wished he could have seen Deadboy’s face when he heard that bit of news. He looked up, feeling the silence in the room as all eyes were bent on him.
“Oh, you guys weren’t there. He showed up when Buffy was laid out with that killer flu. He was carrying flowers like it was an ordinary visit, the asshole.”
“Xander. Language,” Buffy snapped, her eyes darting at Dawn.
“Oh please. I hear worse than that from Anya,” Dawn said. She leaned closer to Xander. “Are you saying Angelus came to the hospital gunning for Buffy? And you were there?”
“That’s right. Faced down that particular big bad all by my lonesome. Guess Deadboy wasn’t feeling too lucky that night ‘cause he took off with his tail between his legs.”
Anya was as puzzled by the story as anybody else. “Really? That story doesn’t make that much sense. According to Buffy, you weren’t a great fighter back then and I doubt Angelus would be scared of you.” She brightened. “Oh, maybe that’s why you never told me. No Xander heroics to brag about.”
“You really do nothing for a guy’s morale, you know that, Anya?” Xander sighed.
“I’m just being honest. You’re still quite the Viking in bed,” Anya chirped, winding her arms around him.
Identical grimaces flew around the room as the ex-demon began to nuzzle Xander. Willow tapped ferociously on the computer keys, desperate to find anything to defuse the discomfort. She perked up as something came on to the screen. “Huh. Here’s something new. Not sure if it fits, though.”
Giles leaned over her shoulder to peer at the screen, grateful for a timely diversion from Anya’s sexual ramblings. “What is it?”
“Well, I stopped looking for demon beasties ‘cause that was getting us nowhere. So I decided to concentrate on seeing if anything new or, you know, especially odd had happened in Sunnydale in the last six months.”
“And?” Dawn chimed in.
“Seems Sunnydale’s got itself a new billionaire on the block,” Willow pointed to the screen and highlighted a small article.
Anya perked up at once. “There’s a billionaire in town? Why wasn’t I informed?” She crossed over to the computer and leaned over, avidly scanning the small print.
“His name’s Sebastian Seversen. Ooh, it looks like he’s bought up a suite in Glory’s old building. And that’s not the half of it.” Willow peered at the screen. “He brought his own forest with him.”
“A forest? An entire forest? Man, the rich really aren’t like you and me!” Xander exclaimed. “I’m surprised it’s a forest, though. If I were rich, I’d buy my own theme park. Something with rides featuring big-breasted superwomen.” He yelped when Anya smacked him on the arm.
“What are you saying? That I’m too small in the top for you?”
“No, Anya! It’s just a typical fantasy. A stupid, idiotic, childish, typical male fantasy that I have no intention of pursuing.”
When Anya’s scowl didn’t abate, his glance flew wildly around the room. Finding no sympathy from the women present, he appealed to Giles. “Come on, G-Man. Don’t tell me you never dream about large boo--breasts! Breasts!” he babbled when Willow’s lips thinned. “I was going to say breasts ‘cause words like boobs, hooters, tatas, gazongas and knockers are so un-P.C.”
“Don’t drag me into this, Xander,” Giles murmured. “I prefer smaller breasts myself. Big teats are for cows. Anything larger than a handful is a distinct waste.”
“You’re not fooling me, G-Man. Underneath all that tweed beats the heart of a red-blooded straight guy who loves the big boobies.” Anya smacked him again, harder this time. “Breasts!”
“I haven’t worn tweed in a long time--” Giles countered.
“Much as I’m enjoying this talk about breasts and fashion,” Willow interjected, “I think we should focus on the new billionaire in town.”
“Say, how come none of us noticed a new forest springing up overnight, anyway? Isn’t that the sort of thing that attracts a lot of attention? Especially with a billionaire attached?”
Buffy’s brows creased. “Huh. Dawn’s right. Any reason why we didn’t see--how much acreage we talking here, Willow?”
Willow peered at the screen again. “Wow. We’re talking about 75 acres.” She leaned away. “That is bizarre. There’s no way we wouldn’t notice that kind of thing happening in Sunnydale.”
“Think it could be a ‘now you see me, now you forget me’ whammy like what Glory laid on us with her inner Ben?” Xander asked.
“Maybe. That would mean we’re definitely dealing with demon activity, people. Does a whole new load of greenery springing up overnight tie in with our baby snatcher, Anya?” Buffy tilted her head at the ex-demon.
Anya pursed her lips in thought. “It does narrow the field considerably since a baby-eating forest entity rules out demons who like to hide in caves, live in the water or lurk underground.” She took her list from Giles and began crossing out names, muttering under her breath.
“So we narrow the search parameters to forest-dwelling beasties. On it.” Willow began typing up new instructions under Google. Links spanning 36 pages sprang up and she sighed. “This could take a while.”
“We don’t really have the time. This thing’s been working its way through Sunnydale’s cutest.” Buffy straightened, not without difficulty. Her big belly made larger movements difficult. “Giles, I think it’s time we paid Willie a visit.”
“Are you sure you want to take Giles? You’ll want to question the other demons and he’s not exactly warrior material,” Anya pointed out.
“I can fight very handily, I’ll have you know,” the Englishman huffed.
“I meant that you’re so old. With your slower reflexes, a lot of these demons would tear you to pieces. And Buffy isn’t exactly in fighting shape, either. Do you think demons are going to be intimidated by your big belly? It might make them more eager to take you on. What would be tastier than Slayer meat unless it’s Slayer with a side order of tender baby?”
“She’s right, dearest. Even if it’s only to question Willie, the dangers are too great.”
“So we wait until Willie’s is closed and then we go in.”
“Not a good idea. That man isn’t exactly known for his discretion. He might let it slip to other demons that you’re expecting,” Giles reminded her.
Buffy’s mouth opened and closed. Giles was right. Willie wasn’t to be trusted. She’d been keeping herself indoors during the night to keep demons from knowing about her altered condition. Best not to tempt fate by letting Willie see her. But what the hell was she supposed to do while the others were busy fighting evil?
Anya continued, unaware of the Slayer’s inner turmoil. “I think I should go instead of Buffy. I know some of those demons. They might be more willing to talk to me. Especially the ones I’ve slept with in the past.”
Xander’s eyes narrowed. “But you’re only human now, An. They might not want to talk to you. They might try to eat you instead. What’ll you do then?”
The ex-demon scowled at the reminder of her merely human status. The next moment she shrugged it off. “I suppose I could hook up with Clem. He doesn’t really have a reputation as a dangerous demon. But he is one of them. They won’t hurt me while he’s around.” Anya sighed. “I wish Halfrek were still here. She had a soft spot in her heart for kids. That’s one of the reasons why she was so down on deadbeat dads.”
“Where was she when I was a kid?” Xander muttered. Only Anya heard; she gave him a sympathetic look. Contrary to what the others may have thought about her, she was capable of keeping her mouth shut sometimes. So Xander’s unhappy home life remained a secret with her. She also liked the fact that this was something he chose to share with her. It created a bond between them that was stronger than sex alone.
Anya realized with a start that this was what Xander was aiming for. He didn’t want her just for her body; he wanted her friendship, her love and her tenderness. In short, he wanted everything she had to offer him. For the first time she understood why he was downplaying the role of sex in their lives.
She wanted to share her sudden insight with him. But the others were already sweeping along in their plan to dig out the latest Sunnydale evil. She guessed it would just have to wait.
“So it’s decided. Anya, Clem and myself will go to Willie’s,” Giles stated.
But Anya was shaking her head. “And I say no. You’re just human, Giles. Have you ever been in Willie’s bar?”
“Well, um, no, not as such. But I haunted many a seedy pub in my day.”
“Not one crawling with demons, I expect. I’m betting you never accompanied Buffy when she went to talk to Willie’s either. She probably only went with Angel. One Slayer and a demon might get away with being on that turf. A mere human with a demon might be pushing it unless the two were really close friends. So that’s why I should be the only one to go with Clem.”
“Hey, I went with Buffy to Willie’s once. It was no big deal,” Xander argued.
Anya’s eyebrows shot towards her forehead. “Really? And it made a difference?”
Buffy’s expression was a cross between guilt and amusement. She knew just how little Willie had been impressed by Xander’s so-called “bad cop” routine. But she wasn’t about to tear down one of her oldest friends in front of Anya. She tried to switch gears as tactfully as possible. “So if Giles isn’t going with you, what should he do?”
Xander patted Giles on the back. “Don’t sweat it, G-Man. You can sit this one out with Buffy and the rest of us will handle things. If we run into anything that needs more of the book searching, we’ll call you.”
“I suppose I could just put in time at the Magic Box. Time is money and all that. I can also search the Magic Box books when sales are slow,” Giles added. He wasn’t happy about being left out of the action but he realized his talents were best put elsewhere.
Willow leaned back from the computer, stretching her arms a little to ease the strain. “I’m not so sure what more I can do. I could put protection spell up around the houses of people with newborn children. But that takes time and the owners might catch me. Not so sure I can explain throwing magic dust around their houses.”
“Say, I could go with you, Wills. Tell them that, as a worker in charge of construction, you’re spraying homes for potential pests.”
Dawn’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t know, Xander. That sounds kinda iffy. I mean, is that really something a construction worker would do?”
“Hey, I could load myself up with my tools, a few cans of pesticides like we use on the sites, and tote Willow around in my big old truck. People in Sunnydale will buy anything if you come up with a good enough reason, Dawnster.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Buffy observed. “Will, you should make a map of the homes where the children have already disappeared; see if there’s a pattern. If you find one, you and Xander can start with targeting the most vulnerable houses after work and school tomorrow. I can help Giles at the Magic Box by going through the books while he’s working the register. Once Anya gets in touch with Clem, they can go have a little chat with Willie.”
“No problem. I have him on speed dial,” Anya corrected. She dug her cell phone out of her purse and held it up for display.
“You have a demon on speed dial?” The younger Summers girl clearly found that a little unbelievable.
“Demons do keep up on modern technology, too, you know. Who do you think is responsible for Velcro?”
“Demons invented Velcro? What a truly marvelous age we live in. Equal opportunities for everybody.” Xander mimed wiping away a tear.
“Well, handling zippers is hard when you’ve only got claws.”
Giles hadn’t heard anything like this before; his encyclopedic mind stored the interesting tidbit away for another time. “Quite. Well, it seems as if we all have our individual tasks laid out for us,” he said as he stood, a silent signal that the Scooby meeting was over.
“Hey, what about me? Don’t I get to help?” Dawn demanded.
“Doing what? We don’t have a demon to fight, not yet, Anya and her demon pal are handling the Willie front and Willow and me will be working the wiccan wonder. What do you want to do, Dawnster?”
“Well, I should be doing something, Xander. I’m not some helpless girl. I can contribute.”
“Sure you can, Dawnie. You can stay with me after you get out from school and keep me company. You can start by massaging my feet.” Buffy held up one foot and waggled it in demonstration.
“Ewww and no! I do not want to touch your toe jam. That’s your husband’s job.”
“Oh, come on! You talk about yourself as being this baby sitter extraordinaire and you can’t even help your pregnant sister with a foot massage?” Buffy pouted.
“You can save the lower lip, Buffy. It won’t work on me.”
“Fine. If you can’t help me now, don’t expect to get to play with your niece or nephew after the baby comes.”
The younger Summers sibling tossed her hair. “That’s fine by me. I have plenty on my hands in that department with all the other babysitting gigs I’ve got lined up.”
“I’ll massage your feet, Buffster. I can use massage oil if you like. You know, that sweet vanilla stuff you like so much.” Xander’s salacious grin met with Buffy sticking out her tongue.
Anya glared at him. “Oh no, Xander. You stay away from other women’s body parts.”
“Especially my woman,” Giles added silkily.
“Getting married really dented your sense of humor, you know that, Giles? What’s a little harmless massage?” He shifted out of Anya’s reach when she raised her hand menacingly. “Hey, watch it with the smacking! That’s abuse!”
Dawn tried to bring the conversation back to her. “Girl abuse aside, you guys still haven’t told me what I’m going to do to help.”
“Dawn, you’re not the only one who’s being parked on the bench.” Buffy patted her stomach in emphasis. “So just chill. Go to school, work in your darkroom, do your babysitting gig…” A sudden thought struck Buffy. “Ask your friends to keep a lookout. If anything weird happens or if you hear anything, you know, wacky at school, tell us. Okay?”
Dawn hated this. Buffy was trying to keep her out of Scooby business again. But one look at her sister and brother-in-law’s worried faces and she caved. Buffy and Giles had enough to worry about with a new papoose on the way without Dawn adding to things. She sighed. “Okay. But the moment something happens…”
“You’ll be right there in the thick of things, kicking butt and taking names,” Xander interjected.
“Yes, you might even get a scar or two,” Anya added. “It’d be so much cooler than your tattoo if you showed up at school with a scar across your face. Of course you couldn’t tell anybody except your friends how you really got it but it would make you look so bad and dangerous. Still, being scarred for life is a kind of turn off with men. But you can’t have everything.”
“S-scars?” Dawn hadn’t thought about that. Buffy never got any scarring from fighting demons. But then again Buffy was a Slayer and the Slayer package evidently included instant healing, no scarification attached. Sometimes it sucked to be Buffy’s sister.
“Don’t listen to her, Dawn. She’s just trying to scar--SCARE you,” Willow fumbled.
“No, I just think if Dawn is really gung ho in charging in where there’s so much danger, she should be made aware of the risks,” Anya corrected. “Didn’t you ever think that you might wind up scarred or permanently disfigured from doing all this, Dawn?”
“Uh…”
“We’ll all protect you, Dawnie. Just the same way we protect each other,” Xander corrected when he saw Dawn’s worried expression.
“Well, just so you know I’m not some baby you have to watch out for all the time,” she muttered.
“Speaking of babies, when is your next babysitting job scheduled?” Giles asked.
Dawn grabbed her backpack where it lay crumpled on the floor and rooted around in it until she found her cell. Quickly bringing up her calendar she answered, “It’s day after tomorrow. So I can do the homework thing and then zip over to the Lafayettes--they’re on the other side of town so I’m gonna need a ride, Xander.”
“You got it, Dawnster.”
Giles was musing over her statement. “Dawn, how old is their child?”
“Timmy? He’s about a year and a half but kinda runty. Mrs. Lafayette is always worrying about that, wondering why he’s not the butterball she and her husband are. Why do you want to…oh.”
“Giles, I don’t think he’s in danger. He’s well over the age limit. Isn’t he?” Buffy didn’t like the creased look on her husband’s forehead. It made him look older and more tired. She was the one with the weight of the world on her back; it shouldn’t have to land on her Jellybelly, too.
“I’m not sure. Until we find out exactly what it is we’re dealing with, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility. Dawn, I want you to keep a close watch on the boy. Don’t let him out of your sight until his parents return.”
“Gotcha, Giles.” Dawn’s shoulders straightened. “So what now?”
“Now Anya calls Clem on her phone,” Giles gestured at her. “Depending on how quickly he shows, they could do this tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“Morning might be better. Willie’s tends to be demon free then,” Xander observed.
“Early early morning. I don’t want to miss any work.” Anya pressed a button and held it up to her ear. “Come on, come on, Clem. Where are you? It’s a Tuesday night--are you out playing kitty poker, again?”
Willow had seen how miffed Giles was about left being out of the action although he hid it well. Spike would have sulked and Angel brooded around Buffy. Then she got an idea.
“Say, Giles, what say you and me pay this Seversen guy a visit before I go to school? We can find out whether there’s anything fishy about him.”
“What if he’s a demon, Will? Do you think you and Giles could handle him?”
The redhead’s look was mildly reproving. “Hello, wiccan power here. We all handled the Hellmouth just fine when you were--gone. Both times. Didn’t we, Xander?”
“She’s right, Buffster. Our little Wills here was a very good Slayer stand-in. She had the plaque to prove it and everything. Not that we’re putting down your role as a Slayer or anything,” Xander injected hastily. “But time with you has turned us all into a well-oiled, fighting machine. With vanilla flavoring on top.” He yelped. “Again with the hitting!”
“So we go chat up Sunnydale’s local moneybags and squeeze the truth out of him. Sound like a plan?”
“Capital plan, Willow, except for one small detail. How exactly do you intend for us to approach a man who’s probably surrounded by a plethora of secretaries, bodyguards and other employees designed to provide an impenetrable wall between a wary, wealthy man and hoi polloi such as ourselves?”
Willow’s green eyes got a strange gleam that made Xander gulp. “Leave that to me. I’ll crack him like an egg.”
“That would be rather messy. Are you practicing evil again?” Anya noticed the various pained expressions. “What?”
__________
Mr. Seversen normally didn’t allow casual visitors to meet him while he was working. He’d been in the midst of rushing from one important meeting to another when the redhead and the older English gentleman had accosted him. But she’d stared him in the eyes and he hadn’t been able to resist speaking to her. One minute after she’d started talking and he had dismissed his secretary and his bodyguards, ignoring their vociferous objections.
He didn’t understand it. The girl was undeniably pretty but he never allowed himself to be swayed by feminine beauty when there was work to be done. Like a lot of powerhouse businessmen, he’d learned to separate his personal feelings from his business acumen years ago.
But her voice had a quality that riveted and calmed him, making her words seem oddly compelling. However, after the first few words, she’d concentrated on simply staring at him, a sweet beguiling expression on her face. “You think there’s someone hiding on my grounds?” he asked.
“Uh, yes,” Giles answered. Willow had made it clear that it was tough for her to speak and work her mojo on another’s mind at the same time. So they formed a Scooby tag team in which she mindmelded and he talked. It seemed to be working so far.
“I-I’m not sure,” Mr. Seversen stammered.
“Think,” Willow said. She reached out a mental feeler and pushed in the direction of Mr. Seversen’s head. She wasn’t quite sure how to probe the human mind at this point but she was rapidly learning. She only hoped she didn’t cause brain damage.
Mr. Seversen paled slightly as if reeling from the internal pressure. He shook his head, vaguely aware of the burgeoning pain, and tried to concentrate. “A-a long while back, maybe six months ago, I thought I saw movement in the forest, like there was somebody darting behind a tree. The next moment it was gone and it didn’t reappear. I forgot all about it.”
“You didn’t see a face or a human figure?”
“No. Just a flash. I thought it was one of those tree huggers.”
“Tree huggers?” Willow frowned. Being a wiccan and connected to the earth, she was all for environmentalism and could detect the thinly veiled contempt behind the term.
“Yeah, they were a real pain in my ass in Scotland. Said it was upsetting the environment to move all those trees or some such nonsense. I thought maybe one of them may have taken up the slack here in the states.” Mr. Seversen blinked and his eyes narrowed. “Who did you say you were again?”
“We work for the, uh, Environmental Protection Agency,” Giles interjected. That had been their cover story. It seemed the only one that would fit their line of questioning.
“Really? And what exactly are you investigating?” Willow concentrated and his gaze faltered, turning dreamy and unfocused again.
“We believe that you may have brought back a, um, dangerous wildlife or a fungus with your oak trees from Scotland. They may have damaging effects on our local ecosystem.”
Fungus? Willow mouthed. Giles ignored her and smiled at the man, hoping he had an answer for them.
“I told you. There hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary. Just that one flash of green and that was it.”
“Green?” Willow asked. “Like a tree branch or something?”
“No, this didn’t move like it was foliage. It was definitely a coat or scarf or other piece of clothing. But, like I said, it was gone too fast for me to see anything else.”
“Well, thank you very much for your assistance. Might we have your signed permission to inspect the grounds?”
Willow bit her lip. This was the part of the plan that was a little dicey. She wasn’t at all certain she had the ability to manipulate people into physical actions if they didn’t want to do it. The very effort was making Mr. Seversen sway as if he’d been clubbed between the eyes.
Endless moments seemed to pass as both Giles and Willow wondered if he’d snap out of it and start yelling for his bodyguards. The next moment he walked jerkily over to his desk, pulled out a piece of letterhead and began writing. Seeing his shaky scrawl, Giles stopped him and had Willow type out a simple letter and print it out on his office computer. After that, it was an easy matter to obtain his signature.
Pocketing the document, Giles favored the dazed man with a smile. “We are most grateful for your cooperation in this matter. The EPA shall call on you if we have any more questions.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever.” Mr. Seversen’s eyelids flew up and down a couple of times as if he was trying to orient his vision. His head bobbed between Willow and Giles again. “Who did you say you people were again?”
“Nobody. We thought this was the bathroom.” Willow waved feebly and turned to leave. She waited until she and Giles were alone in the elevator and sagged against the wood paneling. “Woo. Giles, I don’t know if I can do that again soon. I felt my control really slipping there at the end. And I think I’m getting a headache.”
“You did well enough. Will he remember us at all?”
“Not really. He’ll have a vague impression of two people who looked like nondescript relatives, faces you wouldn’t pick out twice in a crowd. But that’s it.” Willow rubbed her temples and grimaced.
“Are you certain you’re all right? No blackouts or nosebleeds imminent, I hope?”
“I’m right as rain, Giles. Although I’ve never understood that phrase. Why rain? What’s so right about it as compared to, say, snow?”
“Given that this is the Hellmouth, snow counts as definitely lacking in rightness. Although there was that Christmas when it snowed,” Giles mused.
Willow waved her hands. “It wasn’t me, I swear! This was before I became All-Powerful Wiccan Girl. You can’t pin that on me!”
“I’m fully aware of that, Willow.” Catching a glimpse of her mischievous expression, he clucked his tongue. “Ha bloody ha. Very funny.”
She stuck out her tongue at him and then sobered. “Speaking of the weird, what did you think of Mr. Seversen’s green flash?”
“It’s very little to go on. He spotted somebody wearing a verdant color. That’s all.” Giles shrugged.
The redheaded woman walked by his side in silence. Something was teasing at her memory. It fluttered around the edges of her mind, increasing the pain of her incipient headache. The more she tried to grasp it, the more it hurt. When Giles paused to open the car, she leaned against the passenger side door and concentrated on the elusive image.
Pain seemed to drive a fist into her head and the redhead swayed as her thoughts scattered under the onslaught. She sank to her knees, whimpering with the agony.
“Willow!” Giles rushed around the front of the car to cradle the stricken woman. Blast, he should have argued against this course of action. This newfound talent of Willow’s had proven too much for her.
Memories of her nosebleed after her encounter with Glory seized him. What if she suffered brain damage from this? He tilted her head up and scanned her face carefully. “Willow, what is it? Do you want to lie down? Should we go to hospital?”
“N-no. I’ll be o-okay.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and she oriented on his concerned face. “I’m not sure what happened.”
“Was it some sort of psychic backlash from your mental manipulation?”
She shook her head although the movement caused the hurt to resurface. “No, this…is something else. Is my head big? It feels big.” Her head wobbled on her shoulders and then a measure of clarity returned to the pain-fogged emerald eyes. “Giles, I think we need to get out of here.”
He sorely wanted to stay. This was no ordinary headache and he thought the man back in the condo definitely was responsible. But the tense, drawn expression around the redhead’s face convinced him. They could sort out the business later.
__________
The drive with the windows opened seemed to revive Willow somewhat. She drew deep lungfuls of the air in order to clear her head. With each passing block, she looked healthier and more alert. Then she started and sat bolt upright in the car seat. “Giles!”
“Yes?”
“I remember about the green thing, the thing that was bugging me back at Mr. Seversen’s place! There was a woman, a strange woman in the Magic Box the other day.”
“What other day? When?”
“It was that day Buffy caught you kissing that woman. She was wearing a green coat and she reeked of magic.”
“I was kissing another woman? Surely not,” Giles exclaimed.
“Giles, how can you not remember? Buffy caught the two of you and then she took off.” Willow’s eyes focused on his face. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
Her statement met with a blank stare. What she said made no sense. But Mr. Seversen’s mention of a green flash and the wiccan’s insistence were too coincidental to be denied. But he honestly couldn’t recall any incident such as what she described. “I-I…Willow, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. What woman? Who was she?”
“Oh boy. I think we just pegged our latest Sunnydale baddie,” she muttered. “Giles, I remember seeing her. I mean, I remember it now that I really thought about it which may be why you don’t. I could definitely feel the magic around her. It was old and strong. And she figured out I wasn’t of the ordinary, too, ‘cause she took one look at me and ran like her coat was on fire. She’s got something to do with this; I’d bet all my wormwood on it.”
Giles’s first reaction was one of denial. Surely he would have remembered… He recalled Glory’s ability to fog the mind of her victims and he felt an icy chill. When they stopped for a red light, he drew a deep breath and concentrated.
Dark brown, almost black eyes, turning a queer red…
A laughing mouth and lilting accent…
A scent of something pungent and the yielding feel of her in his arms…Buffy? No, not Buffy…
There was a tearing in his mind and Giles gasped at the pain. He opened his eyes to see Willow staring at him. Her green eyes were darkening and veins were flickering across her face, gaining in prominence and color as he watched. “Willow! Stop it at once!” he barked, appalled at the surge of power he could sense in her.
The wiccan blinked and the startling changes stopped. “G-Giles? W-what? What is it?”
“Stop manipulating my thoughts!”
“I’m sorry. I just thought it would help--”
“You cannot do something like that, Willow. You were on the verge of losing control.”
“I-I was?”
“Don’t ever do anything like that again without asking my permission,” was the steely response. “You don’t know what you could have stirred up by probing into my thoughts like that.”
“I wasn’t probing. No probing, I swear,” she protested. “I just thought I’d give you a little push the way I did with that Seversen guy.” She looked at him curiously. “W-was I changing? Did my eyes get all spooky and ‘oooo’ with you? And why did that happen anyway? I wasn’t losing control with the billionaire.”
“I am a powerful spellcaster in my own right, Willow. When you--prodded my mind like that, my magical defenses rose up and rebelled against the intrusion. Unlike Mr. Seversen, there was considerable resistance and your aggression in fighting against it forced your darker urges to the fore.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize.” Her gaze fell away from his. She whispered, “I really am sorry, Giles. D-did it hurt too much?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure.” He massaged his forehead, wincing as waves of pain erupted. But Willow’s action had had some effect. “My goodness! Ms. Icqueen!”
“Ice queen?”
“No. Icqueen. She was the woman I, um, had that unfortunate encounter with in the Magic Box.”
“You remember her now?”
“Indeed,” he muttered. “But Ms. Icqueen certainly hadn’t given any impression of being dangerous. She’d been assaulted by mere vampires and needed Buffy’s help to rescue her.”
“Really? She told you that? Or Buffy did?”
“I had the news from Buffy the previous night. You remember how she mentioned it to you?”
“Yeah and that’s kinda strange when you think about it,” Willow mused. “Buffy remembers seeing this woman and rescuing her. You kiss her and I chase her outta the Magic Box and neither of us remember until just now. Why is that?”
“That is undoubtedly another mystery to be explained. Perhaps it has something to do with the circumstances under which Buffy met her. The woman was being assaulted and was severely rattled by the experience. Perhaps her fragile emotional state caused whatever glamour she throws around her to be disrupted momentarily.”
“Glamour schlamour. We’ve got to tell Buffy and the others about this ‘cause I think we just figured out who our babysnatcher is.”
“Willow, let’s not jump to conclusions. Ms. Icqueen’s behavior and her subsequent removal from our memories are suspicious. That doesn’t mean she’s responsible for the infant disappearances. She could be something or someone else altogether. She might even be an ordinary human female with mystical powers. Much like yourself,” he pointed out.
“I don’t know, Giles. Sounds like groping to me…from a guy caught groping,” Willow replied.
The older man flushed. “I’m not trying to justify my actions with her. I merely want to point out that she was buying crosses and garlic to protect herself. Hardly the actions of a demon, wouldn’t you say?
“Not if she was an old demon--maybe an elder god--who isn’t affected by crosses, holy water and all the other Christian mumbo jumbo,” the redhead pointed out.
“An elder god who is rendered helpless by vampires?” Giles replied with an arched eyebrow.
Willow frowned as she remembered Buffy’s story about her first encounter with Ms. Icqueen. “Oh. Okay, maybe she doesn’t have so much on the ball when it comes to dishing out punishment to the undead,” the wiccan replied. “That doesn’t mean she can’t be evil. And the way she ran out of the store? Definitely of the suspicious.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Giles was reluctant to concede the point. But he had been mistaken in his assumptions about a customer before now. He just hated to think his instincts were so dull after all the years spent on the Hellmouth.
“I’ll look for this Ms. Icqueen on the Internet. How hard can it be to find somebody with a name like that living in Sunnydale? And if we can’t find her--”
“Then it’s a sure bet she’s not who she claims to be,” the older man finished. “Capital suggestion.”
“Thanks. Yay for the wiccan with the big brains,” Willow grinned. “Even if they are leaking from my ears as we speak.”

TBC
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What a Mother Wouldn't Do