“Enemies” 10/14

[sroni]

She was pacing across the room, back and forth, too worked up to do anything else. She said something without even realizing she’d spoken the thought. When Xander looked at her, she realized she must have said something out loud. “Christ. Babies, man. Effing babies. Even the older ones fool you.”

“What babies?”

“Nothing.” Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Back and forth. “Vi.” Back and forth.

He exhaled sharply. “Okay, now we have a name. But we don’t have a —” A look of panic came over his face as he interrupted himself. The panic quickly turned to anger. “She’s not pregnant, is she? Who is he? I swear to God that I’ll tear him apart limb from —” Now he was pacing right alongside her.

Now she interrupted him. “Pregnant? What the hell?”

“She’s not pregnant?” She shook her head. “Well, you were talking about babies. It’s a logical jump.” He spoke defensively. She shook her head, still pacing back and forth.

His eye followed her. “Faith?” She looked at him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like my eye has turned into a ping-pong ball, and I’m getting a headache. Would you please stand still for a moment?” She stopped moving. “Now. Whatever it is, is about Vi?” She nodded. “So what is it?”

She was back to pacing. “Her birthday.” Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Yeah, so?” His eye moved back and forth.

She stood still. “Vi just turned fourteen.”

He stiffened up completely. “That’s not funny.”

She gave a harsh laugh, devoid of any humor or amusement, moving again. “Wasn’t trying to be. Just saying fact. Yesterday, she was thirteen. This summer, she was thirteen. When we shoved her into a life-or-death situation, she was thirteen.” She stood still and screamed, “FUCK!” and then forced herself to calm down. “Babies. Damn babies. And the best part? The cherry on top of this perfect situation? We don’t know how many like here there are. Great. Just effing great. What the hell are we going to do? How do we fix this?”

He put his hands on her arms, steadying her. “I don’t think we can fix this.” He puller her against him, controlling his own sense of helplessness so that he could be steady enough to help her. That’s what she needed at that moment, that’s what he’d give her. “I’ll talk to Will, but I don’t think this is something that we can fix.” He kissed her forehead. “All we can do is find and tell as many as we can.” She nodded and leaned into him.

The phone lines across the Atlantic would be burning tonight. Willow wouldn’t handle this well, and Giles needed to know, too.

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