"3:22. It's been seven minutes since the last one, and this one really hurt."

"Do I need to call the midwife?" His voice had lost the softness of sleep.

"I'm not sure yet. They're still pretty short."

"Water?"

"Yes, please."

She listened to him get out of bed and fumble for his robe. Concentrating on sounds helped take her mind off the pain; the alarm clock's buzz, the creak of the floorboards followed by the rush of the tap--she focused on each of them in turn. 3:23 switched to 3:24, the pain receded and she struggled with her cumbersome bulk until she managed to sit up. They'd been short, but this one had lasted over a minute. She might have mistimed the one before it.

The light flicked on, indicating that Wesley was back with the water. He handed her the glass, waiting for her to finish drinking before asking her if she needed anything else.

"Help me up?" She'd made it to sitting, but was pretty certain that standing would take a joint effort, and she kind of needed to go to the bathroom.

Another spasm hit as she was washing her hands, harder than the previous ones. She found herself crouched on all fours, moaning and shaking uncontrollably, as a gush of fluid soaked her legs. Hands, those were hands helping her off the floor and into the tub. Then they were gone, but there were soothing sounds that made no sense as warm water poured over the pain, dulling it until she could focus on anything other than the dark red haze. Was she crying? It felt like she was crying. The pain faded again, and she was finally able to pay attention to things outside of her body. Wesley was on the phone. Why was he on the phone? He was also dressed. When had that happened?

"Patricia will be here soon. She says to remember to breathe. For the record, there were only about five minutes between contractions. You may have slept straight through to transition. I'll go and get you some more water and some ice cubes while we wait."

Buffy nodded. This was it. She wasn't ready; birth would be the first stage of separation, and she wasn't ready. Not for any of it. Her hand trailed in the bathwater, leaving tiny whirlpools in its wake. The blinding pain of contractions was in some ways easier to deal with than this in-between state. She could focus on the goings-on of her body and not even think about what would follow.

Wesley returned with the water and a bowl of ice cubes; he handed her the former and set the latter on the back of the sink, then retreated to the doorjamb. He leaned against it, eyes flicking from her to his watch and back again every few seconds.

Buffy was about ready to ask him to knock it off when the next pain shot from her back down her legs. She didn't have time to make it from tub to toilet before she threw up; the nausea had hit her so suddenly that she figured she was lucky she'd at least made it to the edge of the tub.

"Sorry," she groaned.

He was already mopping up the mess. "It's mostly water. As I recall, you haven't eaten since yesterday morning, and the only other thing you've had is a half glass of apple juice. Besides, it's a common enough response, one I believe has to do with sympathetic nerves. Ice?"

She nodded, sucking on a piece until the contraction ended. "You're nervous, aren't you?" She asked when she was able to speak again.

"How could you tell?"

"You're babbling. It's kind of a dead give away."

The doorbell rang , signifying the arrival of the midwife, before he could respond. In between the increasingly frequent spasms, she realized it was for the best. She really didn't have time for another circular argument at the moment. Patricia took some basic information about timing and duration, then hustled Buffy out of the tub and into the pillow and sheet covered tarp they'd set up on the living room floor. A quick examination confirmed that she was indeed in transition.

"You managed to sleep until they were only a few minutes apart?" Patricia laughed. "You've got some real tolerance for pain there, Buffy. Keep breathing; once you're in active labor, strange as it sounds, the worst is over and you're almost there."

She was right. It proved to be much easier to deal with the pressure of something making its way out than the ripping pain of her body widening to allow for the exit.

Buffy declined the offer of a mirror when crowning began, concentrating on working with her body. She could do this, lord knew she had enough training in following her instincts to deal with something as normal as giving birth. A few moans and hissed curses, a lot of blood and crying and pushing, and not much time later, the offended squeals of a freshly-evicted baby filled the room.

She stared at the foreign creature that had been placed, squirming, at her breast. "Your head is huge," she informed it.

Patricia looked up at them and smiled. "It's the normal size. They feel larger than they really are."

Buffy stroked the tiny face, so absorbed in the feel of it that she barely felt the last contractions as the afterbirth made its anticlimactic appearance and was dutifully examined by the midwife. By the time everything was settled and taken care of, and the three of them were finally alone in the house, Buffy had come to a conclusion. The pain, the confusion, and finally the peace... giving birth was a hell of a lot like dying.

• **

Birth, he was not surprised to discover, was as messy as anything else in life. It was long, painful, boring, frightening, miraculous, and absurd by turns. Not to mention somewhat gory. The midwife claimed that it had been a fairly short labor for a first child.

Funny how one's perception of time could be affected by the amount of stress one was under. It had felt like days, rather than hours during the event itself. Of course, now that it was all over, it was something of a blur. He was beyond tired. He wondered if it would be possible to fall asleep where he was, even with the midday sun streaming through the windows. The floor felt so very comfortable.

"I give up."

He blinked and looked up at Buffy as she tried to arrange the pillows to her liking with one arm while balancing their daughter with the other.

"I could get you more pillows," he suggested.

"No, don't bother. I just need to admit to myself that comfortable's not happening in my reality anytime soon," she sighed, finally abandoning her attempts at pillow manipulation.

"It's odd. Do you know, we've never discussed names for her. I hadn't even realized it until now."

"Tara. I've been thinking of her as Tara."

He understood, he thought. Both why she wanted to use that name for her daughter, and why she hadn't mentioned it until after she had safely delivered.

"It's a lovely name. Tara. I think it suits her," he stared at the pink, wrinkled bundle with her mass of dark hair sticking out at odd angles. "She's beautiful, in a funny sort of way, isn't she?"

"Wesley, she looks like an alien. She's all head and eyes."

"And hair. She has rather a lot of it, don't you think?"

"And hair. All head, eyes, and hair. She's gorgeous." Buffy was unable to keep a note of pride from creeping into her voice. "Aren't you, Tara?"

"She'll need a middle name, you know. What about Anne?"

"That's my middle name."

"I know."

He said it quietly, almost to himself. Tara wouldn't have his name, not legally. Officially, she belonged to two people who didn't exist. Giving her her mother's middle name would be the closest thing to a heritage she would have. It seemed important, though he'd have been hard pressed to explain why exactly that was the case.

"Wesley?" Her voice shook him from his contemplation.

"Hmm?"

"Anne is perfect. Thank you."

He smiled at the two of them, then curled up on the floor and let himself sleep.

• **

Five weeks. Thirty-five days. Eight-hundred and forty hours, give or take. Math had never been her strongest skill, but she was doing an awful lot of it just to stay sane. At least she wasn't counting the seconds, though she'd thought of it. Five more weeks in limbo. Then, if she was pronounced fit and ready, she could go home. Put back the pieces of her life, put all this behind her. Five more weeks until she was the one doing the leaving. Five more weeks to memorize her daughter's face.

It wasn't enough time.

She felt the still-unfamiliar ache that meant it was almost feeding time, strong enough that it almost overpowered the constant ache of her body struggling to go back to normal. Tara was asleep on a blanket, her father stretched out on the floor next to her, one finger still trapped in a tiny fist.

Buffy suspected he'd have been happier if she wasn't breast feeding. Not that he'd said anything. After the initial euphoria of the birth had passed, he'd retreated back into himself, and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. He made a point of reminding her that she'd be leaving before too long, that it wasn't a good idea to become so invested in Tara's life.

She wasn't certain what he expected her to do. Six weeks total, one of them already gone. She wasn't going to waste any of the small amount of time she'd been given, even if it made leaving a little more painful to contemplate. It wasn't like it was going to be easy no matter what she did. Nothing ever was.

Tara woke with a plaintive wail; Buffy picked her up and guided her to the breast, murmuring soft little nonsense syllables to soothe her until she latched on and began feeding.

"You're quite certain you want to be doing this?" He was watching them, his face unreadable. Buffy had learned over the months that the lack of expression usually indicated that he was fretting about something.

"She's better off being nursed. It's good for her."

"I'm not questioning the obvious benefits, but it's not her I'm worried about."

Well, that cut to the core of the matter. "Believe it or not, I'm capable of making my own decisions about what's good for me. My milk would have come in either way. Would you rather I was sitting around watching her drink formula and waiting for it to dry up? Because I'm kind of thinking that would be worse."

"It's more than just the nursing, Buffy. You're bonding with her, which is a risk you shouldn't be taking."

She took a few deep breaths, not wanting to get angry during a feeding. She'd done it the night before, and had been up all night trying to settle a very cranky Tara.

"You'd rather I just ignored her, and let you run to her with a bottle every single time she needs something?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Not going to happen. I thought you knew me better than that." Buffy watched the movement of the little jaw as Tara suckled. "You can't expect me to just leave her alone."

"Buffy..." he stopped and let out a short sigh. "I only want what's best for the both of you."

She looked up at him, exhausted and sick of the argument. "You need to let me be the judge of that."

After that, he kept his opinions to himself for the most part, and she kept tracking the ever-shrinking number of days until her six-week appointment.

• **

She had to admit, part of her had hoped that there was something wrong, something that hadn't healed right and would force her to stay just a few more weeks. She knew better. After all, quick healing was part of the package, and she'd felt almost like her old self for a couple of weeks. The post-natal appointment just confirmed it. She had the go-ahead to resume almost everything, and while slaying wasn't technically on the list, she'd run out of excuses. It was time to go home.

Even if it didn't feel like home anymore.

It didn't take her very long to pack. The maternity dresses went into a black garbage bag, ready for donation, and the t-shirts and sweats she'd been wearing for six weeks weren't hers to begin with. In the end, it was just another light bag with a few essentials ready for another bus ride away from the things that mattered.

They'd gone out while she readied her things, leaving a house loud with their absence. She set her bag by the door, then went to the hamper and started folding the pile of baby clothing Wesley had washed while she was at the clinic. Tara was growing so quickly; the littlest newborn items didn't really fit her anymore. Buffy separated the clothing that Tara'd outgrown from the things that still fit. Instead of putting them in with the rest of the things to given away, she slipped them into her bag, putting them under the change of clothes and the Ziploc with her toothbrush and floss. She realized she was crying again when she felt something wet hit her hands. She hated crying, but it seemed like she'd been spending a hell of a lot of time doing it as of late. Her breasts were aching, which meant Tara must be getting hungry, but there was no sign of them.

She checked the clock. They'd been gone for two hours. She checked the freezer. There was one less bag of milk than had been in there when she'd left for the appointment. He must have packed a bottle. He'd been doing that about as often as she'd been crying. Funny, that. She pumped to relieve the pressure, then sealed the bag and stuck it with the rest of them. Buffy figured Tara had at least a two more weeks of milk left before she became a formula-only baby.

When she ran out of chores, she took out a pen and a stack of cards she'd purchased on impulse a few weeks before giving birth. There were eighteen of them in all. Buffy wrote something on each one and enclosed them in their envelopes, numbering them as she went.

Her breasts were full again by the time Wesley returned with the baby. She grabbed Tara before he had time to take off his coat.

"Nice of you to take so long," she said flatly as she pulled up her shirt and guided her daughter to a nipple.

"You're leaving in the morning. She needs to get used to you not being here."

"So, what? That means I should be allowed to spend time with her before I leave?" She tried to keep her voice level.

"Buffy, you're leaving. In case you hadn't realized it, that means you're going to have to get used to not being with her the same as she has to get used to not being with you."

"Believe me, I'm well aware of that, but I sure as hell don't see why that means I can't spend as much time with her as I can before I go."

"Buffy--"

She cut him off. "If you tell me it's for the best, I swear I'll break something."

It was obvious that he was well past angry and bordering on furious, but he said nothing. She stared at him, eyes daring him to speak, until he turned and left the room. Tara kept nursing, blessedly oblivious to the tension, until she drifted off to sleep, little milky bubbles gathered at the corner of her mouth. Buffy set her down gently in the crib and went in search of Wesley.

As expected, he was in the bedroom, nose in a book.

"She's asleep. Her clothing's been put away and there's more milk in the freezer. I'll be out of your hair before too long, so you can stop fretting."

He slammed the booked closed and stood up. "Stop it."

"Stop what? Stop caring? Stop hurting?" She moved until she was close enough to feel the warmth coming from his skin.

"Stop taking it out on me, damn it." He must have been stewing the whole time Tara had been suckling, because he'd crossed the border to furious several miles back. "What in heaven's name do you want me to do, Buffy?"

"What I want is to have spent more time with my daughter on the last day I could be with her, but you just have to know best, don't you?"

"Because it would be so much better for her to be subjected to your self-indulgent moodiness, I suppose?"

The crack of her hand across his face shocked them both. She stared at its reddened outline, appalled.

"You should get out before I'm tempted to respond in kind." He spoke so quietly she could barely make out the words, but there was no mistaking the sentiment.

She stood and waited for the answering blow. His hand lifted, but instead of connecting with her face, it tangled in her hair, tugging until there wasn't any space left between their bodies, and very little between their mouths.

"Is this what you want?" Her voice was harsh, foreign to her own ears. Her mouth covered his before he could say a word, teeth digging into his lower lip as she sought to punish them both for everything and nothing at once.

He answered with hands as brutal as her voice, yanking down the sweats she was wearing and pushing her onto the bed, not bothering with the nicety of foreplay before taking what she offered. She felt dry and bruised and nowhere near used enough, nowhere near hurt enough. Frantic and frenzied with need and self-loathing, she drew him closer, meeting violent thrusts with quick jerks of her hips as he slammed into her, little whimpers escaping her lips at the feel of his fingernails digging into her thighs while his hands pushed them up and further apart. Her hands worked their way under his shirt, pulling it off before returning to claw at his back, slicing into the skin like tiny razors. She was trembling, vacillating between pain and pleasure as she came. Her teeth clenched around his shoulder until she tasted the copper and iron of his blood mixed with the salt of his sweat and felt him shudder, felt the warm-wet familiarity of his release inside her and the warm-wet familiarity of tears across her face.

"You should have left when I told you to do so." The words came out of his mouth without infliction as he rolled off of her, but the hard, haunted look on his face gave lie to the even tones.

Too shocked by what they'd done to say anything, she just stared at him, dumbly taking in the marks she'd left on his skin. There were more than she remembered making, neat imprints of teeth and nails mixed with long scratches welling over with blood.

She looked at her hands and back at the wounds she'd left. "I'm sorry." She was shaking, oh Christ, what had she done? "I'm sorry," she repeated, voice breaking.

"Are you all right?" The question was a mix of weariness and concern, and she had no answer for it. Something between a laugh and a groan escaped him when it became obvious she wasn't going to respond. "G-d, we're a mess, aren't we?"

"That would be one way of putting it. I didn't mean to..." she trailed off, one hand reaching out to touch the worst of the bites.

"Neither did I, but it's not something one could tell from looking at you."

She glanced at her body, startled by the scratches and bruises just starting to blossom. "Oh." Feeling self-conscious, she tugged her shirt down to cover the evidence. "I hadn't noticed." She winced as she shifted her weight; she may have been told it was fine to have sex again, but she somehow doubted that this was exactly what the midwife had intended.

"I didn't entirely mean physically," he added. "When I referred to us as a mess."

"Yeah, I know. I'm starting to think my coping mechanisms leave a little something to be desired. Also? I'm getting the feeling that learning from my mistakes? Not my strong suit."

"Nor mine. Buffy, I'm sorry I took Tara out today. It was presumptuous of me."

"You were also right, much as it pains me to admit it. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through leaving her. I've had to do so many things that seem like they should have been harder than this; some of them have even killed me. But this? It's different. It's not the end of the world, so how come it feels so much worse?"

"I don't know. She'll be well taken care of, if it helps at all." He pulled the blanket up to cover them both.

"It does, a little. And I know she will, but sometimes I get so sick of sacrificing anything that might possibly resemble a normal life for the sake of my calling."

"If it wasn't for your calling, Tara wouldn't exist in the first place. Presuming the best-case scenario, that being a lack of success for any of the apocalyptic events that have taken place during the last half-decade or so, you'd most likely be in your final year at university, still an only child, and Sunnydale would, if it entered into your thoughts at all, merely be a small town with an obscenely high death rate and obscenely low housing prices. However, the best-case scenarios very rarely occur outside of theory, so we'd probably all be dead."

"Thank you, I think. Wow, you sounded like Giles."

"Council training. You said it yourself a while back. There have been times when I've felt an apocalypse might not be entirely without merit, but my occasional bursts of selfish nihilism aside, your role is an important one." He paused, looking for a moment as though he'd thought about, then decided against, saying something more before he took a deep breath and soldiered on. "I realize that I'm the last person in the world who should be lecturing you about this--it's somewhat like both the pot and the kettle joining forces to call the coal bin black--but you need to stop punishing yourself for things you can do nothing about. You're a good person. You've just been dealt a rough hand is all."

"Like I said, I've got some seriously screwy coping mechanisms, but thanks. I'll try to keep it in mind." She gave him a weak smile, and he kissed her forehead.

"Get some sleep, Buffy. Tara will no doubt wake up at least a half dozen times before morning, so you may as well take advantage of the lull."

His estimate was off by one. Tara woke her five times before morning, three of them because she was hungry, one because she wanted changing, and once--the last time--for no readily discernable reason. "You're a strange little thing, aren't you?" Buffy murmured. "Do you know I'm leaving, is that it?" Tara just blinked and scrunched up her face in response before settling down.

Daughter and father were both sleeping when she left. She made certain the cards were in plain sight on the table, along with a letter of explanation and an apology for not waking them to say her goodbyes. Grabbing her bag, she let herself out, locking the door behind her and slipping the key through the mail slot so she wouldn't be tempted to run back inside.

She spent the bus ride back to Sunnydale staring out the window, head facing forward, one tiny sock clutched tightly in her fist. Back home, she resumed her training, stuck close to Dawn, and resorted to monosyllabic responses when faced with questions about what had happened while she was away until no one asked her about it anymore.

End of the freaking first freaking part.

YAY!

I love it so.

And I would be happy to beta part two.

La la la, love this fic...