OK. My 15-minute on the nose, for Cindy.

Let There Be Light

No one knew where he'd been, really. No one at all. He remembered, though, every last filthy minute of it.

There was no merciful gap in his memory, no easing of the moment at which his soul came back to him. He remembered it just fine.

(Standing in attack stance, facing off with the Slayer and her sword, stupid little blonde bitch thinking she could defeat him, it was always all about her and she never fucking got it, not once in her teeny-bopper sense of her place in the universe, that she was a small turd with all her power on loan. The world was going to die. It was going to be sucked into hell. He'd arranged it, he wanted it, and all these years he'd got what he wanted, whenever he wanted it, until he'd made a little tiny mistake, raped and drained that gypsy. The soul had messed him up, yes, but the soul was gone now. He actually owed the Slayer for that one. He'd popped her cherry and now he was going to pop her head like a grape. The last thing she was going to know before she died screaming was the enormity of her failure. He could hardly wait.)

And then the voice, a small cold passionless drone, a spell, and he screamed inside himself but there was no screaming it away. It happened fast, Willow's voice cracking through his hate and malevolence with the ease of strong teeth on a soft shell; the wrench, the noise of the maelstrom opening behind him, all of that faded for just a minute to nothing more than a pretty soft hum as Willow's voice came into him like a wasp's ovipositor, seeding him with his own soul.

She saw it happen, of course. The Slayer, Buffy, his darling girl, standing there, her face blanched with the pain that he had just felt, that he was going to feel, little miss Sweet Sixteen with two feet of cold steel and killing edge in her hand, her eyes almost lost in the glaze of what was about to happen.

And happen it did; of course it did. He couldn't argue with inevitability. He knew that damned well. Like Romeo, he understood: he was fortune's fool.

His own voice, saying her name, seeing her, understanding, remembering. Soft flesh against his own suddenly weakened shell. And then the taste of the blade, ripping through belly and spine, pushing him into the open mouth of the darkness he himself had made.

The time in hell. He understood about hell now; he hadn't before. It took every bit of self-control to which he could lay claim, to blot out even a small portion of it.

The ring, falling into sunlight. In his own hell, it had summoned him, brought him, the no-longer-a-man who fell to earth.

He remembered. This would feed the soul he had been given this second time; the pain, the agony, but also that moment of last love and her calling him back.

The door to the crypt opened, jogging him free of his own thoughts. She came in to the darkness of the crypt, smiling at him, silk and stone together.

And this, he thought, was her true power. In some way, as she blacked out the torment of memory, she brought sunlight with her.

Here's my 30. Paul kept talking, so it's short.

Fifteen Minutes in a Life She Never Had

"Why, Dr. Burkle, he looks just like you."

Fred smiles and looks down at Charles Jr, with his little tan face scrunched up in sleep and the cap her mom knitted for him that's two sizes too big perched precariously on his bald head. "I think you shouldn't have stopped wearing your glasses, Wesley. He looks just like his daddy." She strokes the softness of his cheek and watches, rapt, as he turns towards her finger, demonstrating the rooting reflex. "He's got my appetite, though."

Her little miracle wakes up, blinking slowly as he adjusts. She moves the finger to his hand, and he grasps it with his chubby ones. Palmar Grasp. Charles is proud of that grip; he claims his namesake's going to grow up with a mean sword hand. Fred doesn't care how his sword hand his, or what he grows up to be, just so long as he's happy.

"Would you like another cup of tea?" It's Wesley's first time back in California since his godson was born, and only his third since she got her PhD.

"No, sadly. My conference is in an hour, and I still need to go back to the hotel and look over my notes on the mating habits of the Azha'ar demon."

"A Watcher's work is never done."

He stands to go, pausing to smile down at the baby. "Congratulations yet again, Fred. I look forward to seeing all three of you tonight at dinner."

After Wesley leaves, she puts the dishes in the sink and carries her son to the living room, where she sings the periodic table of elements to him to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, because if it works for the alphabet, it should work for chemistry. The dried flower arrangement on the coffee table catches her eye, and Fred reminds herself to hide it or throw it away before Wesley comes over for dinner. She owes a lot to those flowers, more than she can risk having revealed.

Charlie cries, demanding food. With another grateful smile, she sets him to her breast and starts nursing, leaving the Lethe's Bramble disposal until after naptime.

Oh, my, Plei.

OK, Plei, who did she use the Bramble on? Or am I dense and missed it? Did she use it on all of them?

I'd say probably all of 'em.

Dead prof? What dead prof?

Heheheheh.

I so do love her doing a Willow and getting away with it.

And she totally would. That's why I love the Fredlet.

Plus she instigated a reconciliation between Wes and Gunn. I like her priorities. Damn, Gunn would be cute with a baby.

I was never Fredlet's booster, but I began first liking and then actively appreciating her last season. Her shooting through Jasime to hit Angel to get Jasmine's blood into his system? Give that girl a cookie for pure ingenuity, damnit.

No comment on mine? Damn. This is the first time I've ever written a timed story, too.

Drat! We cross posted. I'll have to go back and read!