Thine Own SelfBy Gidgetgirl
Chapter Fourteen
“Son of a bitch!” The female scream, heated and oddly high pitched in its last syllable, was heard as far as the waiting room down the hall.Gunn let out a low whistle. “Something tells me that the doctor is going to get his ass slayed if he doesn’t get Faith an epidural soon,” he said.
Cordy tried to suppress a smile. “Hopie, baby,” she said. “Cover your ears for Momma.”
Hopie compliantly did as requested, a wicked smile on her little face. Aunt Faith knew some bad words.
Kate lifted her head off of Oz’s shoulder long enough to make sure that Cale was still asleep in Jordy’s lap. He was, his head snuggled into the older boy’s chest, Jordy stared off, his eyes a bit glazed over. They hadn’t heard anything on Anni yet.
Their group had managed to push all but a few people out of the waiting room.
“Hope those babies are born before sunrise,” Hopie said loudly. “Otherwise Daddy and Mr. Spike will just…”
Everyone looked at Hopie and she batted her eyelashes innocently before turning her attention to the couples in the room.
Her momma and daddy were definitely currently the snuggliest couple. Cordelia was sitting in Angel’s lap, partly because of the lack of chairs in the waiting room, and partly because he just needed to feel her warm touch, to know that she was alive.
Kate sat silently at Oz’s side, her head on her shoulder and her eyes vulnerable. She didn’t want to let herself be vulnerable again. She’d been so stupid the last time, chosen so poorly. She pushed the thought out of her head as Oz’s hand squeezed hers softly.
As Hopie surveyed the next couple in the room, an impish grin crossed her face, and she walked over to them, holding her arms up, a silent demand to join the snuggle fest. Sighing, Spike lifted her up, and sat her on his lap next to Buffy. Hopie clamored into Buffy’s lap and snuggled down. Buffy touched the top of her head slightly, smoothing the hairs that had escaped the child’s ponytail holder. Spike mimicked the motion, smoothing down Buffy’s runaway hairs.
Fred and Gunn, Nic and Clay, and Dawn and Connor were all being a bit more subtle about their special physical contact time, and for a moment, the room fell quiet except for the chattering of the Potentials.
“You did what Maddy?” Chance squealed, trying to keep her voice to a whisper and failing miserably.
“I decorated Lilah’s office with some special drawings.” Maddy said, making mental notes of the curse words that floated out of the delivery room and into the waiting room. Faith certainly was creative.
“Drawings of what exactly?” Kody asked. She knew quite well what the drawings were, but she also knew that Maddy was dying to say the words, and the demi still felt bad about indirectly having caused Maddy’s kidnapping.
“Well, on this one statue I drew a penis,” Maddy said, quite loudly.
“Madeline,” Clay said in a low, horrible voice.
Maddy gave him an angelic and prissy look. “I’ll have you know there’s no shame in the word penis,” she said. “It’s an anatomical term.”
“She’s right, you know,” a wayward nurse commented as she walked by.
Clay narrowed his eyes at his little sister, but said nothing. Of their entire family, he’d always loved Maddy the best. In fact, as far as he had been able to tell, all of his brothers had felt the same way.
After another piercing scream, Anya came into the waiting room. “There is a lot of noise,” she said. “No babies, and no monetary compensation as yet for the pain.”
“Anni?” Jordy asked, his voice low and steady.
“Wes is still in with her,” Anya replied. “Which is why Xander is in with Willow.” Anya paused for a moment. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “in some ways, having a baby is a lot like sex, only without the toys and with strong pain relievers.”
Chance’s eyes widened, as Faith screamed again.
“She doesn’t mean that,” Buffy said, adjusting Hopie on her lap.
“All I’m saying…” Anya said.
“Don’t,” Cordelia and Buffy interrupted her at once. “Just don’t.”
Dakota looked at Anya. “You want to grab a cup of coffee?” she asked. “I don’t mind talking about sex.”
“I don’t like coffee,” Anya said. Then she beamed at the younger girl. “Okay.”
“You want to come, Connor?” Kody drawled. “Take notes?”
Connor narrowed her eyes at Dakota.
Hopie jumped off of Buffy’s lap and ran over to Kody. She pulled on the older girl’s pant leg until Dakota bent down.
“Connor doesn’t have really special grownup time yet,” Hopie whispered loudly. Dakota looked down at Hopie, an odd half grin on her face.
“She means they don’t have sex,” Anya clarified.
Connor and Dawn continued to engage is some quality synchronized glaring in Dakota’s general direction.
Just then, Xander walked into the room.
“Babies yet?” Hopie asked, jumping up and down.
Xander shook his head. “But Anni’s had several stitches, and the doctors think she’s going to be fine. They want to keep her overnight, just because she’s lost so much blood. Wes is with Willow now. Jordy, Anni was asking for you, and An, stop talking to Little Faith about sex, because honestly, it’s just kind of creepy.”
“Okay,” Dakota said loudly. “Let’s get this straight. My name is Dakota. If you want, you can even call me Kody. For all I care, you can call me whatever insult you can come up with. But. Stop. Calling. Me. Little. Faith.”
“Whatever you say, Faith-ette,” Gunn muttered.
Fred poked him in the ribs. “Be nice, Charles,” she whispered.
“Well, Kody,” Xander said, curbing the urge to call the girl some derivative of the name Faith. “Faith requested that you come into the delivery room.”
As Kody reluctantly went back towards the delivery room, Hopie climbed back into Spike’s lap.
“Momma and Daddy are getting married soon,” Hopie told Spike.
Spike stifled a grin. “I know,” he said.
“When are you gonna marry Buffy?” Hopie asked.
Spike said nothing, and Buffy remained suspiciously quiet as well.
Kendall filled the silence. “Joss,” she said, thinking about Kody’s little temper tantrum. “I think you’ve finally moved down one slot on my ‘to flounce’ list.”
“I second that,” Dawn said darkly.
“Son of a bitch,” Maddy said. When everyone looked at her, she grinned. “Faith said it,” she said by way of an excuse.
“Well,” Nic said reasonably, “when you have a baby after only being pregnant a few days, then you can curse too.”
“Everyone around here procreates like bunnies,” Kendall said sarcastically.
Anya looked around, wide eyed. “Bunnies?!” she shrieked.
Kody stepped hesitantly into the birthing room. Faith’s forehead was covered in sweat, and Willow was matching her yelp by yelp.
“What do you want?” Kody said, jamming her hands into her back pocket.
“I want to go numb below my shoulders,” Faith said. “But it doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening, so come over here and shut your mouth.”
Just then, both women let out yells.
“Mother F…” Lindsey put his hand over his wife’s mouth.
“Not around the babies, darling,” he said.
“For the love of all things good and chocolatey!” Willow screamed.
Wes smoothed back her hair, talking to her softly and kissing her hand.
Willow caught her breath. “How’s Anni?” she asked.
“She’ll be fine,” Wes said. “Though I may have to kill her.”
“She did what she had to do,” Dakota muttered. “More than a lot of people.” The girl turned her attention to Faith. “So now because my dad’s had more women than I’ve had cigarettes, you and I are supposed to be sisters?” she asked.
Faith looked at Dakota. “I guess,” she said. “I never knew who my dad was. My mom never would say. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have family.” Faith breathed through the pain. “Except for Lindsey, and these babies, and you and all of our friends.” A tear slipped down Faith’s cheek. “I’m not normally so sappy,” she said, the lackadaisical tone returning to her voice.
“Anyway,” Lindsey said. “We haven’t had much time to think of names, and we were wondering if you had any ideas.”
Dakota said nothing. For a rare moment, she was speechless.
“If you have a boy, just don’t give him a girl’s name,” she said, staring pointedly at Lindsey. “And if it’s a girl, you really should give her a girlier name than her father’s.” Having put her two cents in, Kody looked down.
“Can I go now?” she asked.
“No,” Faith said, panting. “With the hell I’m sure you’re going to put us through, you have to suffer through this too.”
Lindsey smiled a charming smile at her. “At least you know we won’t call you Little Faith,” he said.
Dakota shot a questioning look in Willow’s general direction.
“Too busy with the whole birth give-y thing to call you Little Faith,” Willow confirmed between breaths.
Faith looked at Lindsey. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “If they’re girls, you have to name them, and if they’re boys, I’ll name them.”
“As long as you swear not to name our son Lindsey,” Lindsey said. “Or Shannon. Or Ashley.”
Faith glared at him for a moment and squeezed his hand so hard that it turned white around the knuckles.
“Agreed,” she said.
“And you can’t name our kid Hope, Love, Faith, Grace, Charity, or God Forbid, Chastity.” Faith said.
Dakota snorted.
The doctor came in and looked at both women. “You’re both looking just fine,” he said. “It shouldn’t be much longer. An hour or so at most.”
Faith shot him dagger eyes. “I’ll show you an hour at most,” she said dangerously. The doctor backed away slowly.
Jordy stepped cautiously into Anni’s room. She looked back at him.
“Hey,” he said simply.
“Hey you,” she said, her voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. For a moment they said nothing. “Just sit?” Anni asked him.
He nodded, and he sat on the edge of her bed, holding her hand in his.
“She’s not gone,” Anni said after several minutes. “She’ll never be gone. Part of her will always be inside me, because she wasn’t lying. She was everything about myself that I’ve always feared and hated. I wanted to kill her.”
Jordy looked at her, silent for a moment before speaking. “We all have stuff,” he said simply. He was, after all, only thirteen.
“Yeah,” Anni said slowly. “I guess we do.” She paused. “Am I an aunt yet?” Jordy stood and stuck his head out into the hallway.
“Nope,” he said. “I can still hear them both yelling.”
Hopie looked at Cale, now lying asleep on the floor, and climbing off of Spike’s lap, she walked over to him, her eyes starting to droop. She dropped unceremoniously down to the floor beside him, and curling up next to him, she fell instantly asleep.
In sleep, Cale responded to the warmth beside him, moving closer to the sleeping girl, until the two were huddled on the ground like puppies in a litter, a mass of arms and legs and contented sleepy sounds.
“Oh. Wow. Oh. Yeoooowwwww!” Willow yelled.
Wes’s tough exterior faded, and he looked at the woman who was about to bear his son anxiously. He was worried that there would be some sort of mystical side effect. What if Willow’s body couldn’t birth Lilah’s son? What if something happened to her?
“Oh, don’t be such a worry-guy,” Willow said, her face twisting up a bit. “It’s not that bad.”
The sounds from Faith’s side of the room begged to differ.
Suddenly, Hopie opened her eyes, and she shook Cale awake.
“Hopie, let him sleep,” Cordy chided gently.
“Wake up, Cale,” Hopie whispered fiercely. “The babies are here.”
Cale opened his eyes. “Really?” he asked.
Hopie nodded. “Almost,” she said happily.
From the delivery room, the sounds of screaming amplified for a few moments, and then, after three minutes, they stopped all together.
Lindsey sat on the hospital bed next to his wife, and he pressed a firm kiss to her temple.
“I love you,” he said. Then he leaned down and kissed each of the two babies the doctor had placed in his wife’s arms. “And I love you. And I love you,” he said reverently.
Even Kody was looking at the two tiny, dark-haired babies with a soft expression on her normally hardened face.
On the other side of the room, Wes stared, a shocked expression on his face, at the tiny baby the nurse had laid into Willow’s arms. His child. His daughter.
“I don’t understand,” Willow said, looking at the child, already absolutely in love. “Lilah’s baby was male.”
Wes wrinkled his forehead a bit. “I don’t understand it either,” he said, reaching his finger down to touch the child’s tiny fingers. “Right this second, it doesn’t matter. She’s perfect.”
“Perfect,” Faith repeated, the idea a new concept to her. In that single instant, life really was perfect.
Everyone in the waiting room jumped to their feet when Kody entered the room. She looked at them, feeling out of place, but loving the fact that they were all looking to her for answers. She felt like she was actually a part of something.
“They’re fine,” she said. “All of them. You guys can go in if you want. The doctor was against it, but Faith convinced him otherwise.” A wry grin lit up Kody’s face at the thought of Faith’s choice method of convincing.
Hopie jumped up and down.
Kody bent over. “Sorry, short stuff,” she said. “They couldn’t convince the doctor to let you little ones in. They said you carried too many germs.”
Hopie continued jumping up and down, and Cale imitated her, not knowing exactly why. “They’re here,” Hopie said. “And they’re together. Just like they’re supposed to be. She won’t be lonely anymore. She borrowed it, but she gave it back, and now, everything is juuuuuust right. Just like in the story.”
The little girl continued babbling, and the others shrugged. Whether it was because she was a little kid or attached to a cryptic magic, there were a lot of times when no one understood a word that Hopie said.
“I’m going to go in and see her,” Angel said. Cordy stood and followed him, as did Buffy.
Jordy walked to the door of Anni’s room and peered around carefully. Then he tiptoed over to her bed, picked her up carefully, and carried her toward the room where the babies were all crying in unison.
Wes picked up his child tenderly and rocked her as he remembered rocking Anni when he had been quite young himself.
Faith looked at her two and started laughing. “They’ve got my lungs,” she said.
Buffy looked at Willow and smiled. “You know, Will,” she said, taking the baby’s sex in stride. “I think she might have your eyes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Willow said, and she truly meant it. Whether the child was hers or Lilah’s, or some combination thereof, Willow loved the small baby more than she’d ever loved anyone or anything. Wes handed the baby to Buffy.
“I feel like I’m going to break her,” Buffy whispered.
Faith motioned Cordelia over. Very gently, Faith placed her son in Cordelia’s arms.
Then she looked at Angel.
“Oh no,” Angel said. “I’m not good with babies.”
“You were great with Connor,” Cordy said, loving the feeling of holding a baby again. In that moment, she knew that she wanted one of her own as soon as possible.
Faith was adamant, and finally, Angel took the wailing child into his arms, and she screamed loudly at the indignity of it all.
“Looks like she has her mommy’s temper,” Angel commented.
“So,” Cordy said. “Who are these little guys we’re holding? Do you have names?”
Faith nodded. “I guess so,” she said. She took a deep breath and hoped that she wasn’t screwing her son over with the name she’d picked. Somehow, it just felt right. Faith took a deep breath.
“I sure hope I’m doing this right,” she said. “His name is Hayden.”
Lindsey looked at her, narrowing his eyes.
“You never said I couldn’t use your middle name,” Faith pointed out.
Angel smirked at Lindsey. “Lindsey Hayden McDonald?” he said, raising one eyebrow. “Your mother must have hated you.”
“Not so fast, lover,” Faith said, using the old nickname. Angel stiffened a bit. “His full name is Hayden Liam McDonald.”
Angel flushed a bit at the use of his former name. He silently cursed the leprechauns who’d brought his past to everyone’s attention. Then he grinned, a goofy grin that made him look indescribably funny.
“And what about the little one I’m holding?” Angel asked.
Faith turned her attention to Lindsey. “Genevieve,” Lindsey said.
Faith looked at him, knowing exactly where he had gotten the name, and her voice caught in her throat. Genevieve had been her first watcher’s name. Before Lindsey, she’d been the only person Faith had ever truly trusted. Only Lindsey would have remembered the one time Faith had mentioned Gen’s name in the middle of a two AM conversation.
“Genevieve North McDonald,” Lindsey said.
Faith raised an eyebrow. “North?” she said. “As in North Dakota?”
Lindsey shrugged. “Maybe I just think it sounds neat,” he said.
Faith smiled. “North,” she said.
The little girl responded by screaming and thrashing her legs, making a look of stark panic settle over Angel’s face.
“North it is then,” Lindsey chuckled. The child screamed louder. “She already recognizes her own name,” the proud papa said, beaming. “I’ve got the two smartest babies in the world.”
“I beg to differ on that,” Wes said politely.
“Have you two decided on a name?” Buffy asked them. Just then, Anni and Jordy entered the room. Anni looked at the tiny baby in Buffy’s arms, and she felt an instant connection to the child.
Wes looked at Willow and nodded. “I would like you all to meet Taryn Isabella Wyndham-Pryce,” he said.
“We wanted the names to mean something,” Willow explained. “But we wanted them to be just for her, too.”
“Taryn after Tara,” Buffy said softly. Willow nodded.
“Isabella?” Anni asked, her mouth dry.
“Don’t talk, luv,” Wes said. “You shouldn’t even be out of bed.”
“After you, silly,” Willow said to Anni. “Arabella was out for obvious reasons, but we thought Isabella was kind of pretty.”
Anni nodded, a lump rising in her throat. “It is,” she said.
In that moment, light began shining from each of the three children, beams of light that connected the three, making a brilliant triangle in the air.
“Oh dear,” Wes said. After a moment, Angel, Buffy, and Cordelia held the three babies together.
All three of them stopped crying, and the light beams became one thick light that went straight up, through the ceiling and toward the heavens.
“Oh dear,” Wesley said again.
“You know,” Buffy said, looking at Taryn and feeling her heart melting. “There’s probably a prophesy about this. There’s always a prophesy.”
Outside the delivery room door, a certain Harvard Law graduate stood, her mouth open in shock. Lilah wasn’t going to like this. She wasn’t going to like this at all.
The law clerk/minion rushed out, and in the waiting room, she bumped into a little girl with dark hair and big eyes.
“Tell her something,” Hopie said, looking up at the woman.
“Tell who?” the clerk asked innocently.
Hopie looked straight at her, and the woman squirmed.
“Tell her,” the child said, “It’s allllllll about balance.” And with that, Hopie starting turning around in circles until she lost her balance and fell down, her giggles rising in the air as Cale copied her motions.
An hour later, the new parents were left alone together, the babies in the hospital nursery.
Wes nuzzled Willow. “I love you,” he said simply.
She looked back at him, and placed his hand over her heart. “Yeah,” she said simply. “I love you too.”
“I already miss them,” Faith whispered in Lindsey’s ear. “I miss having them close.”
Lindsey pulled his wife closer, in a warm embrace. “We’ll keep them safe and near us,” he said, thinking of his own lonely childhood in a large, empty house much like Dakota’s. “Always.”
“We love them,” Faith said simply. She laid her head on Lindsey’s chest and closed her eyes.
Lindsey kissed the top of her head and then moved down to kiss her softly on the lips, closing his own eyes and saying a silent prayer of thanks to whatever power was handy.
For once, life had turned out just right.