Where Memories Lead:
Safe Harbor
by Gem

Part One

Willow cautiously entered the old stone mansion on Crawford Street, glancing over her shoulder at every sound. The house had been known as "the" haunted house in Sunnydale when she was a little girl, and given that her most recent memory involved Angel being on his deathbed, she was even more on edge.

"Buffy," she called out quietly, "are you here?" She couldn’t bring herself to raise her voice, for fear of what she might draw out of the shadows.

What emerged from the shadows was her best friend, dressed in hot pink workout clothes and carrying a sports bottle. In the light of such cheerful modernity, Willow knew any self-respecting spooks would flee for their lack of life.

"Hey Will, good to see you." Buffy took a drink of the water as she curled up on the sofa and motioned Willow to join her. "Fill me in on the haps. I’ve almost missed this place the past few weeks."

"Not much new to report. Demons were all predictably demony, but we dealt. How was LA?" Willow settled on the sofa next to Buffy. "Did you guys ever actually leave Angel’s apartment?" She grinned at Buffy’s blushing response.

"We got out a little. And it was great, all of it, but I’m not going into details. Some things are private." She smiled at the memory of those very special moments, too long delayed.

"Enough said." Willow waved away any potential confidences there were some things she had no desire to know about her best friend, and this would be at the top of the list. "We missed you, Xander and I. I mean, I understand why you wanted to be alone with Angel, but we missed you. Break just wasn’t the same without you."

Buffy laid her hand lightly on Willow’s arm. "I know and I’m sorry. I missed you guys too, and maybe it seems dumb, since we’re getting married, but I just didn’t want to be apart from Angel one minute more. He had a case, so I worked with him." She jumped up from the sofa and began to stride around the room, almost spilling her water with her enthusiastic gesturing. "Will, it was great. It’s a lot like what I do, but we get paid for it. I am so going to love my new life."

Willow felt a twinge of envy when she looked at Buffy’s glowing face. She wanted Buffy to be happy, of course she did, but she wanted her to be happy in Sunnydale. And Willow wanted to be happy with Oz right along with Buffy being happy with Angel.

"When...when are you moving?" It was a hard question to ask, but Willow and Xander had resolved to be mature about Buffy’s new plans. It wasn’t like they had a choice, anyway.

Buffy’s energetic pacing ground to a halt as she turned to stare at Willow. "Didn’t I tell you?" She sounded surprised. "I thought for sure...well, anyway, not till the end of spring semester. It’s too late to transfer to UCLA and I didn’t want to lose a whole term.

"Willow visibly brightened at the news. "So you’ll be staying in the dorm until May? That’s great, roomie." She quickly began to mentally unpack Buffy's bags back into their room.

"No, you don’t understand." Buffy smiled gently. "I’m staying, but Angel found us an apartment. That way we can be together whenever he doesn’t have to work, and we have a home base in case of severe hellmouth-outbreaks in the future."

"But what about your mom’s house? Can’t you just stay with her?" Willow scrambled for a solution that involved as little change from the status quo as possible, but the look on Buffy’s face told her she was going to have to try elsewhere.

"Mom is already working on being the mother-in-law from hell." Buffy shook her head sadly as she walked over to the fire. "I guess she doesn’t want to be unprepared for the big day." She stared into the flames, trying to lose herself in their hypnotic dance.

"I thought she was okay with everything now." Willow walked over to lay a gentle hand on Buffy’s shoulder. "I know she didn’t like the whole Angel idea at first but..."

"She doesn’t like the Angel idea, the baby idea, the LA idea, any of it." Buffy tried to mask the hurt in her voice, but she could tell Willow wasn’t fooled. "You name it she’s against it. I won’t stay in the house with her the way things stand. There’s enough negative energy from the hellmouth I’m not going to subject my kid to grandma dearest until she calms down. And I’m definitely not leaving Angel in the house with her and my trunk full of spare stakes right now. No way."

"So is she going to, you know, behave, on Wednesday?" As maid-of-honor, Willow figured she better know if the mother-of-the-bride was going to be wearing a corsage or a crossbow.

"She will behave," Buffy replied grimly. "The only question now is if my dad can make it. He went up to Vancouver on business and he’s been snowed in for two days now. He called last night to say he might not get back in time." This time she didn’t try to hide her disappointment Willow knew the score there. It wasn’t like it was the first time for her dad to let her down, and it wouldn’t be the last.

"I’m sorry, Buffy, I didn’t know. Do you think he’s trying to avoid, umm, that is not exactly avoid but..." Willow wanted to find a delicate way to pose her question, but it wasn’t happening.

"He likes Angel." Buffy smiled, remembering how surprisingly well the two men had gotten along. "We went out to dinner the night we told Dad, and they really hit it off. I mean Dad still thinks I'm too young to get married, and he went a little ballistic at first about the whole baby thing, but once they talked it was cool. But as usual he had this business deal, and even though he said he'd be back...well, I'm not holding my breath." She resolutely pushed away the pain from all the broken promises. There was only one man whose promises counted now, and she knew she could trust him with her life.

"But who will give you away? Giles?" It seemed like the perfect solution to Willow, actually better than her real father would have been. In the over three years she had known Buffy, she'd never even seen Mr. Summers. He had almost no contact with his daughter, whereas Giles had been there every step of the way since he met Buffy.

Buffy shook her head, drawing away from the fire to walk around the room. "I thought about it, and I talked to Angel, but I decided to walk by myself. If you think about it, it was an old custom when Angel was young. I mean, no one is giving me to Angel, no one even wants me to give myself to him. So I'm going solo."

"I can't believe this all really happening," Willow marveled. "It's just so...freaky." She realized an instant later that the bride might not appreciate such a description of her wedding plans, and hastened to amend her careless words. "Freaky in a good way, of course. Nice freaky."

"Why do I have the feeling my ears should be burning?" said a voice from the doorway. "That is, if I had any circulation," Angel finished as he walked into the Great Hall.

"Just because you hear the word 'freaky,' don't automatically assume you're the focal point of the conversation," Buffy teased as she stepped into his welcoming arms. "I have a lot of freaky people in my life, you know. You're just the most important one." She pulled his head down for a kiss, and did much too thorough a job of it for Willow's comfort.

"Umm guys, not really a spectator sport," she protested weakly, waving her hand. She sighed in relief when they reluctantly parted lips. "And about the freaky comment, Angel, I actually meant the idea of Buffy getting married and the whole having a baby thing. After all that you guys have been through, it just seems so...suburban."

"We could use a little suburban after all the curses and prophecies," Buffy replied wryly. She rested her head on Angel's chest and held him firmly in her arms. "All I ever wanted was for us to have a nice, normal life together. And maybe the demon-hunting will make it a little less than normal, but as long as we're together it's close enough for me."

"Amen," Angel added fervently. To Willow's surprise, he didn't even start to smolder, let alone burst into flames.

"So how was Giles?" Buffy asked, turning her attention back to the love of her life. "Full of doom and gloom, or did he actually have some answers?" She tipped her head back to look intently into Angel’s dark eyes, trying to read her future in their depths. "Does he know how, or why?"

"We know how, sweetheart," Angel replied with a slightly smug smile. He still couldn’t get over the thrill it gave him to know he had a part in this creation, this miracle. "But as for why..." his smile faded, "he thinks he has an idea. He wants to talk to both of us later tonight. After patrol."

"Then you are still patrolling," Willow said quickly. "I thought you said..."

"That I was quitting for now," Buffy finished for her. She lightly kissed Angel on his jaw, then slid out of his arms to rejoin Willow on the sofa. "I am, I have. Angel is going with Giles," she looked over at Angel, "who better take extremely good care of you." She turned back to Willow. "I’m research-girl now, go figure."

Angel sat down on the arm of the sofa next to Buffy and slid his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into the embrace, while her heart gave an extra little thump from his proximity.

"But you’re such a good fighter," Willow protested, leaning forward to emphasize her point. "You’re so strong why would you quit before you have to? I mean later, sure, when you get real big and you can’t see your feet and...I’ll be quiet now." She leaned back against the sofa, both embarrassed and overwhelmed by the image of a hugely pregnant Buffy.

"Will, I’m strong because I’m the Slayer, but our baby...I won’t take a chance with her." Buffy took hold of Angel’s hand as it lay on her shoulder. "It’s one thing to risk my life, I do it all the time and I can handle it. But this baby is special. We still don’t know why she survived time being turned back, and maybe that means she’s meant to survive no matter what, but I won’t risk it. The Oracles can’t fix this if I mess it up."

Buffy was nervously pacing the Great Hall by the time Giles and Angel returned from patrol. It was much harder than she had imagined it would be to send Angel out in her place, and she hadn't stopped worrying since he left. She tried tai chi, she tried reading a fashion magazine, and she even tried working on the partially knitted baby blanket Cordelia had given her as a joke. Nothing took her mind off Angel and the danger he faced for her sake. She was almost dizzy with relief when she finally heard Angel's heavy step outside the door.

"Hey, what's with the greeting?" Angel asked a moment later as he involuntarily fell back from the force of impact.

She slapped her hands down on his chest again, forcing his back to the wall once more. "Buy a cell phone, dammit! You were supposed to be back two hours ago." She turned her back to him and crossed her arms, waiting for an apology.

Angel glanced helplessly at Giles before answering. "Buffy, you, of all people, know it's not an exact science. We got home as soon as we could. I'm sorry if you worried."

She whirled around to glare at him. "Worry? Of course I worried, you big jerk. You're doing my job. How am I supposed to live if anything happens to you because you're doing my job?" Her anger dissolved abruptly, leading her into the shelter of his arms.

"And how do you think I felt every time you faced Dru or Spike, knowing I created them?" he whispered in her ear as he held her. "No one knows better than we do how unpredictable the future is, but I promise I'll be careful."

"And you'll buy a cell phone?"

"And I'll buy a cell phone," he echoed. "Now can we talk to Giles so he can go home and we can go to bed?" He realized from the slight flush on Buffy's cheeks that his words might be misinterpreted, or perhaps interpreted a little too well. "I mean, you need your rest," he added quickly.

"Yes, well, in the interests of Buffy's need for sleep," Giles said dryly, "perhaps we'd best make this quick. Please, both of you, take a seat."

Buffy and Angel sat side by side, and hand in hand, on the sofa. Giles pulled a book from his satchel and searched for the correct page as he began to pace in full lecture mode.

"As you know, I've been searching through all my books, and calling in quite a few favors, ever since you first announced your, umm, condition, Buffy. It simply does not make any sense it isn't even possible. Therefore, there must be a greater reason than the addition of one more life to the universe."

"Seems like a pretty big reason to me," Angel said quietly. He looked over at his lover, at long last by his side again. "We see death every night. To be a part of the creation of life instead of its destruction...don't knock the power, Giles."

"I don't take it lightly, Angel." Giles was a little insulted that Angel impugned his sensitivity, as though he couldn't understand because he'd never experienced it. "But it defies all known laws, at least the ones known to the Watcher's Council. So I did what I do best I researched. Eventually, I came up with an answer."

"And that is?" Buffy was getting impatient. She loved her former Watcher dearly, almost as a second father. At times, however, his need to 'set the scene' drove her insane.

Giles looked at the fire, at the door, anywhere but at them. At last he forced himself to confront them directly. They needed, and deserved, the truth.

"She is a Slayer. The first of a long line of Slayers, actually. Her power will be even greater than yours, Buffy, because she is a Slayer by birthright and by blood."

Angel glanced at Buffy, but she seemed to have withdrawn into herself. The pleading look in his eyes when he turned to Giles wrenched the Watcher's heart.

"You're sure?" Angel asked softly. "She really is going to be a Slayer?"

"I'm sure." Giles addressed his answer as much to Buffy as to Angel. "We checked every volume we could think of, and then it finally came to me. I looked in the Codex and there it was."

"And we all know the Codex never lies," Buffy whispered bitterly, looking up at last. She could remember, in painstaking detail, the last prophecy wrung from the Codex. It ended in her face down in a pool of water. Somewhere in its pages there might also lie the details of her child's death.

Angel slid his arm around her shoulder as Giles continued. In the back of her mind she registered his presence, but she couldn't allow herself to feel comforted by the gesture yet.

"And there shall be a Slayer born to vampire," Giles read, "Slayer in lineage and destiny. Her powers shall be greater for the mingling of blood and fate, and all those of her house shall carry her strength into battle." He closed the book and looked up at his silent audience of two. "There is a bit more about her descendants, but it all gets rather bloody, so...well, you know what to expect. No need to dwell."

Buffy uttered a short, sharp laugh. "No need to dwell," she repeated in amazement. She stared at Giles as though she’d never seen him before. "Giles, you just told us we've been given this incredible gift so we can create more Warriors for the cause. Sorry, make that more cannon fodder. No need to dwell!"

"Buffy," Angel began, until his lover turned her angry gaze upon him.

"Don't you dare try to downplay this! You're as upset as I am, and don't try to deny it just to make me feel better. If anything it's worse for you. You can't cut out now when I do."

Buffy's words and the resulting look of pain on Angel's face confused Giles. "Cut out? I don't understand."

When Buffy replied, she spoke more to Angel than to Giles. "I know, I've always known, even though we never talked about it. But you can't leave her just to be with me. She's going to need you, and so will all the rest. You can't desert them."

"Buffy, I can't." Angel's voice was hoarse with desolation. "You can't ask this of me. I know I have to be there for our child that's not even a question. But all the others who come after her?"

Angel gripped her shoulders with unwitting intensity as visions of his long and lonely future paraded before him. He saw the brief decades of family unity he had gloried in imagining dwarfed by an endless expanse of solitude. Once more consigned to watching, and guarding, and losing, in a never-ending stretch to infinity.

"You’re asking me to watch them all slip away, generation after generation, century after century. My wife, my daughter, my granddaughter, all lost while I stay behind. How many times will I have to relive losing you by losing them?"

She slid her arms around him and pulled his head down into her neck. He clung to her as a lifeline, but nothing could erase the images in his mind. He had known loneliness and isolation before, but to experience them again after such brief bliss was more than his human soul would bear.

"Baby, I'm so sorry," she murmured, stroking his back and shoulders. "I thought I was giving you this wonderful gift. Immortality like regular people get. I never thought..." her voice dwindled away as she, too, imagined his eternity of service and sacrifice to the Powers That Be.

He lifted his head to stare at her in astonishment. "Buffy, don't ever apologize for this." The one guiding force in his life, his love for her, pulled him from his anguished introspection. "Spending my life with you, like regular people, is the most wonderful thing I can imagine. I just...I don't think I can do it century after century without you. I never thought...you know I never planned to go on without..."

"There's no other way," she replied softly. She looked steadily into his eyes, willing him all her strength. "I'm not planning on going anywhere for a while, but eventually I will die. You have to stay to help her, and the ones that come after her. They are all our children, in a way." She gently stroked his face, brushing away the tear that slowly slipped down his cheek in mute protest of his fate.

"I know." He said it so softly Buffy herself could barely hear, but his sorrow rang loud and clear.

"I know it's not much comfort," Giles said, breaking the hushed silence, "but at least you know she will be able to survive in your world, Buffy. If she were to be a 'normal' child, she would have a much more difficult time as the daughter of a Slayer."

Angel's dark sense of humor reasserted itself, with difficulty. "And the fact that she's a Slayer with a vampire for a father will make it so much easier, right?" He withdrew slightly from Buffy as he leaned back on the sofa, but kept one arm securely wrapped around his lifeline.

Buffy's memory suddenly dredged up a nit worth picking. "Giles, the book said she, I mean this future Slayer, is supposed to be 'born of vampire.' But Angel was human when she was conceived. How do you know this is about us?" She glanced anxiously at Angel, seeking affirmation in his dark eyes.

"She's right." Angel nodded eagerly and gripped her shoulder even harder. "Maybe it's not..."

"How many vampires do you think become involved with Slayers?" Giles kept his tone gentle, but it didn't soften the blow to their hopes. "Involved, that is, in an amorous fashion, and of sufficient duration for the Slayer to give birth. I would say the odds of this prophecy involving anyone else are astronomical. I'm very sorry I know you didn't want this for your child, Buffy. And I'm even sorrier I didn't realize what this would mean to you, Angel."

"I just wanted her to have a normal life. Was that so much to ask?" Buffy looked around the Great Hall, with its lack of mirrors and heavily draped doorways. "I wanted her to have all the chances we never got, like long life and sleeping without a weapon under her pillow." She drew a shuddering sigh as she forced herself to regain her equilibrium. "Well, so much for suburban, huh honey?"

Angel smiled gamely at her, trying to match her fighting spirit. Her strength always amazed him, but he knew what it cost her. The least he could do was support her.

"Giles is right, she's safer with us is she's one of us." Angel pushed the images of his eventual fate far back into the recesses of his mind, and concentrated on the immediate future. "Now we know why she survived the temporal shift, and we know she'll be able to protect herself when she gets older. That's not all bad news."

"You even know she is a she. Should make painting the nursery easier." Giles tried to enter into the game, finding a silver lining in the nearest funnel cloud. "I am willing to help with that, by the way. Not that I know anything about paint or such, but how hard can it be?" His smile had an endearing trace of desperation in it that wrung genuine amusement from his beleaguered companions.

"Okay, now we're back to suburban." Buffy stood up and stretched. "On that reassuring, and somewhat tedious, note, I'm going to go to bed. We only have two days to get this place ready for a wedding. Well, three if you actually think we'll get anything done on Wednesday. But it's going to take a lot of work."

"My friend offered to do a ritual cleansing before she officiates at the wedding." Giles slid the Codex into his satchel as he spoke. "Would you be interested?" He looked up at Buffy and Angel in time to see them share an uneasy glance.

"Exactly how much of a deep clean would that be?" Buffy finally asked. "Willow is doing the burning sage routine to purify, but nothing too heavy duty. I mean, when the groom has an actual inner demon, and so do one or two of the guests, it's kind of a fine line between spiritual peace and Drano for the soul."

"Umm, yes, well, I see your point," Giles stammered. "Perhaps you'd best let the ceremony itself purge any emotional old ghosts. Symbolism rather than witchcraft for a change."

Angel rose from the sofa to stoke the fire. "That's kind of the reason we wanted to have it here. We want to create one good memory in this old place before we leave it behind. I don't think witchcraft can help with that."

Later that night, as they lay intertwined in their bed, Buffy couldn't stop worrying about Angel's state of mind regarding their child's future, and his own.

"Angel, honey, are you awake?" she whispered in the darkness. A reassuring squeeze around her shoulders was the only response.

"Angel, we need to talk about this," she tried again.

Angel sighed and shifted slightly, pulling Buffy still closer to him. "There's nothing left to say. You're right I can't bail when you die. I've known that since we found out about the baby." He was silent for a moment. "I just didn't think...I don't want to spend eternity without you."

She ran her hand gently over his chest, tracing a pattern he eventually recognized as the claddagh symbol from the ring he gave her so long ago.

"Maybe I could come back as a ghost and haunt you," she offered at length. She tipped back her head and propped her chin on his chest. "That way we'd never be apart."

"Don't!" he said sharply. "Stop talking about this like it's make-believe, or some fairytale where we get to write our own ending. It's not." He sat up, dislodging Buffy from her comfortable sprawl across him. "Sometimes it's going to be hard, more than we can bear, but we don't have a choice. You taught me that. We'll just get through it, together, for as long as we can."

Buffy sat up as well, glaring at his barely visible form as the moonlight filtered through a crack between the drawn shades and across the foot of the bed. "Well thank you for making our life together sound like a term in Alcatraz. I can't tell you how flattering that is to hear three days before our wedding. It's a real warm fuzzy.

"Angel reached out to her, but she slid back out of arm's length. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry," he said. "I...this whole thing has made me realize one day...you'll be gone. And I'll still be here."

The quiet pain in his voice tore at her heart. She slid back to his side and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "I'm here now," she whispered. "I know we should have talked about this stuff before what would happen when nature takes its course, I mean. I don't like to think of it either, but it's one of the differences between us we have to face. One day I won't be here and you will. And it will be a long time before we can be together again. But I have to believe that someday it will happen. After all we've been through, I can't believe a few years is all we get."

Angel had to smile, though Buffy couldn't appreciate it in the half-light. "After all that fate has thrown at us, at you, you still believe the world is fair." She never ceased to surprise, and delight, him.

"This week," she said, running a lingering hand down his face and throat. "Check with me next week and all bets could be off."

Part Two

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