Hey, Baby
by Rin
Surprise
[reviews]
A/N: The exciting, long-awaited conclusion to story 5. Sorry it's taken so long but I promise you'll like this.
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"Buffy?" Willow trudged in the door, eyes falling, and body exhausted. She just wanted to sleep for days, and now she finally had a chance. After talking to Xander about his lack of work, Eve assured the redhead that things with her best friend were about to turn around again. Never underestimate Eve. The young woman managed to knock sense into the man, and his life was returning. Neither would mention what their talk consisted of, and Willow really didn't want to know what went on those four hours in his office but whatever it was, it worked, and she was all the more relieved.
He'd been over to their house countless times, bringing flowers, chocolates, and jewelry to win Anya back, and toys, outfits, and a new blanky for Jesse. The little girl's old blanky was used for a rag to clean up his vomit one drunken night, and she'd been upset since. It took a while but Anya finally took him back, keeping a suspicious eye on him until she was sure he was really the Xander she married. They'd been back together for two months, and there was only one month left in her pregnancy.
"Buffy? Are you here?" Willow shrugged her coat from her body, and dropped her briefcase by the coat rack before searching the living room, dining room, and kitchen, coming up empty. "Buffy?"
"WILLOW!" The blonde's scream caused Willow to run up the stairs in a frenzy, unsure what the tortured cry was about; it definitely wasn't a cry of pleasure.
"Buffy?!" Willow was frightened. She may not have been around as much lately but her wife was still the only thing she thought about all day. Running from room to room, she finally found her wife in a puddle of water in the bathroom floor. The tub was overflowing from the still running faucet, and she was cringing in tight pain for some reason. The redhead carefully trudged her way to her crying wife, and pulled her into her dry arms. Buffy was naked, and soaked to the bone. "What's wrong, baby?"
"Water...ahhhh!!!" Buffy started breathing harshly, and clutched Willow's body in a tight grip, causing the redhead to wince in her own pain. "Water...water broke..." Her breathing was coming in harsh pants, and she was trying to convey the problem unsuccessfully.
"The pipes?" Willow was just too tired to go into serious thinking mode.
"No...baby...my water...my water broke..." Buffy cringed, digging her fingers into Willow's arm, causing it to turn into a violent bruise.
"The baby? You still have another month, though!" Willow helped Buffy stand but the blonde kept protesting movement, since her contractions were too strong.
"I know! Just get me there!" Buffy stayed on the floor, as Willow jumped up, dialed Faith and Dr. Olivia, and grabbed her briefcase before running out the door to her car. As soon as she started the car, she turned to soothe her wife to find that her wife wasn't there; she'd left her in the bathroom! Running back in the house, she hurried to get her wife, and wrapped a robe around her body just as Faith screeched in the driveway on her motorcycle, parking it, and running to help Willow get Buffy to the car. She'd never been happier to have been off tour for another few days. "Dammit!!"
"Buffy, calm down, baby. We're almost there." Screeching the Jeep out of the driveway, the redhead drove as though she'd taken lessons from her wife.
"You calm down!" Buffy screamed. Her face was flushed completely, and her bulging stomach was twitching. One minute she was preparing to take a bath, and the next thing she knows, her body takes a dive to the floor, as her water broke. Not exactly the bath she was expecting.
"Buffy, just breathe, baby. We're almost there." Willow let Faith lean forward in the car, and keep Buffy in the seat. The blonde was clawing at her seatbelt, and trying to escape the car.
"Chill, B. Will knows what she's talkin' bout. See? There's the hospital." Faith nodded her head in the direction of Sunnydale Memorial, and the blonde just screeched to high hell, causing Willow and Faith to hold their ears from the loud scream. It was loud enough to kill fairy tale monsters, and splatter their heads to goo.
"We're here!" Willow stopped the car at a sudden jerk in front of the emergency room door, and several nurses came out to start helping. Dr. Olivia was disturbed from dinner with her friends but she was taking a helicopter directly to the hospital, and should be here within the hour. Helping Buffy into the wheelchair, everyone was shocked that the blonde didn't protest, just kept breathing heavily and panting.
"Is she going to be okay?" Willow was scared, as she followed the nurses down the hall in a hurry. Buffy was only eight months pregnant. Something had to be wrong.
"She'll be fine. Just stay calm, and we'll get everything ready." The nurses had started a flurry of activity, as they entered a room, and started bringing in beeping machines, and strange utensils. "Buffy, we need you to take a deep breath for us now."
"You take a deep breath!" Buffy still did as she was told, as the robust nurse plowed two fingers in her vagina to measure her dilation. It was clear that this baby was coming regardless. Buffy Summers was in labor, and she was almost completely dilated. Her contractions were coming too close together, and nobody was certain that this was a good thing this early in the pregnancy. Willow just stayed at Buffy's side, allowing her hand to be crunched into jelly, as she smoothed the sweat-matted blonde locks from her wife's tortured face.
"Your doctor just phoned; she'll be here shortly." The robust nurse just stayed with the girls, as the other two started prepping the room for a delivery. Hooking Buffy up to a heart monitor, the nurses checked her vitals, and discovered that her adrenaline was rushing way too fast. Her heart rate was unsteady, and the baby's heartbeat was normal. Putting enough KY Jelly on the ultrasound monitor to drown a horse, the nurse checked the baby inside Buffy's belly. It appeared like any normal, healthy baby would at a nine-month pregnancy, and she had just started her eighth month. Hiding her shock, the nurse hoisted the blonde's legs into the stirrups, while Willow and the other two wrapped Buffy in a hospital gown, and removed the soaked robe. Putting Buffy's hair in a hair cap, the robust nurse just kept moving around the room, while the blonde's contractions went off the wall. The heart monitors were pitching crazy rhythms, and the baby just kept at a normal rate.
"Will! Damn you!" Buffy screamed in pain again, as another violent contraction ripped through her tiny body.
"I know...I'm sorry. I should've been there, and I'm sorry." Willow's hand was sprained from the enormous amount of pressure Buffy was gripping it with but the redhead held the pain inside, trying to stay calm for her wife. She wasn't sure if she was succeeding because she was on the brink of panic.
"Shut up! I don't need your babble right now! AHHHHHHHH!" Buffy screeched again, and the nurses felt the floor shake, as a short, minor earthquake went through Sunnydale. Machines were kicked out of place, and a few ceiling tiles in the hallway fell to the floor but the activity in the hospital room didn't stop for a minute. "I hate earthquakes!"
"Buffy, I know...you need to breathe, baby." Willow cringed again, as her wife squeezed her sprained hand again too tightly when another contraction hit her.
"I hate earthquakes." Buffy was getting dizzy from all the screaming and pain that was running through her body. Dr. Olivia told her to trust her body's instincts, and right now...she didn't like what they were saying.
"I know, baby. I know." Willow tried to lean forward, and kiss Buffy's forehead but the blonde went into another fierce contraction.
"I'm so sorry, Wills. We were supposed to be happy." Buffy was nothing but red splotches, pain, and tears. She looked up with pleading eyes at her wife. Something big was about to happen, and the blonde had a feeling that it wasn't going to be happily ever after for them anymore.
"We are, baby. We're happy. I'm happy. I love you, Buffy. I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately but that's about to change. I'm going to..."
"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Buffy turned her glazed, teary eyes from her wife, and turned her attention back to the nurse, who was watching the blonde's private areas with a little too much interest for Willow's taste. Dr. Olivia rushed through the door, earlier than expected, and immediately went about donning the appropriate gear. Rolling into Buffy's passageway, she moved the sheet covering the blonde's legs, and started to inform the blonde to push. Within the next five minutes, Buffy was excreting the extra bodily fluids from her birth canal, and the baby was undergoing the proper tests. Willow watched it all in shock. It happened so fast. When she walked in from work, she didn't expect any of this to happen. She just thought she'd cuddle up in bed, hoping that Buffy would cuddle with her, and then wake up the next day to her first day off in over five months.
Buffy was on the brink of unconsciousness. Her heart rate was still way too high, and the nurses and Dr. Olivia worked around her, trying to fix the problem. The thing was...nobody knew what the problem was. Buffy took harsh gaps, and the line went flat. Willow switched her gaze towards their baby, and saw her wife lying on the table motionless and not breathing, as the nurses and doctor went about reviving her body. It took way too long but they finally managed to get the blonde's body stabilized, and her heart beating again. For just a split second, Buffy Summers was dead, and Willow died right along with her. Everything was too much for the redhead, as she passed out cold on the floor.
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"So, have you given her a name yet? I mean...the nurses had to have forced you to for their records." Anya was carrying around her own bulge, as the gang minus Willow and the new baby were gathered around Buffy's bedside.
"I was a little unconscious to manage; I wanted to wait to name her with Willow there but she's still in surgery." Buffy started playing with the hem on her hospital gown. She looked worn out, and pale to the max. Her normally tan body was whiter than a ghost. When she woke from her unconsciousness (she'd been that way for almost nine hours), she found Faith, Kennedy, Dawn, Xander, Anya, Fred, Cordelia, Angel, and Jesse there to greet her. That was fifteen minutes ago, and they'd been dishing questions at her since. She was still overly exhausted, worried about Willow, and 'still' hasn't seen her baby. Not being able to wake up with Willow and their baby there to greet her was heartbreaking but it did help that all of their friends were there.
"We saw her in the nursery. She's so little, and she has a shock of red hair atop her head that's adorable." Dawn was sitting on the bed by her sister, and hugged her gently, knowing that the blonde was still in immense pain.
"Yeah. When we walked up to the nurses station to ask where you were, I think we scared the big one." Xander wrapped an arm around his own wife, still a month to go for them. Faith was holding Jesse on her lap, and playing piggies with the little girl, while Kennedy just sat giggling at her girlfriend.
"When are they gonna let you out, B?" Faith kept twitching her legs up and down, letting a giggling Jesse take a ride.
"Faster, Aunt Faithy!" Her little baby voice was too cute, and giggles erupted in the room at a blushing Faith.
"Guess you have a new little one to corrupt now." Kennedy smirked over at her girlfriend, as they shared a loving smile. The rest of the room just smirked, and giggled at the comment, while Faith acted offended but secretly not being able to wait until she got to play with the new baby, too.
"What's going on, guys?" A young man wheeled Willow into the room, hand bandaged, and head stitched where she cut it open on the edge of the hospital bed when she passed out earlier.
"Hey." Buffy smiled lovingly at her wife, even though she was completely worn out still, and Willow returned the gesture.
"Hey." Turning around, she thanked Ben for fixing her, and bringing her back, as she stood on wobbly legs, and walked to sit on the bed beside her wife, taking over Dawn's place. "Hey."
"Hey." Buffy smiled in her drunken stupor, and took the giant hug and kiss that followed. "Some day, huh?"
"That's an understatement." Willow stretched out on the large bed beside her, and they cuddled in together. "Have you seen her yet?"
"No. I just woke a few minutes ago." Their expressions said that they wanted to see their little baby girl, so Xander and Fred took off to find a nurse. Nobody really noticed they were gone, too focused on the reunion.
"I didn't get to tell the nurse a name; did you?" Buffy sighed when Willow shook her head.
"I passed out, Ben said. You sprained my hand almost to the point of breaking it when you squeezed, and I must've hit my head on something sharp when I fell, as you can see by my lovely parting gifts." Willow grinned forlornly, as she motioned to her bandaged head and hand.
"We never really had a chance to..."
"I know, and I'm sorry. Things were just hectic at work but that didn't mean I should've kept you at a distance. I love you, Buffy." Willow entwined her good hand with one of her wife's.
"I swear, the people in this place are bloody id..." Giles stopped, when he recognized that he was talking to himself. Some nurse wouldn't give him the right directions, and he was more than tired, experiencing jet lag from the last minute trip. Olivia had called him after she got out of labor with Buffy, and he was on the next flight to Sunnydale. "Girls." His bad mood was out the window when he saw the gang gathered, and the girls huddled together on the bed. He went, and enveloped them in a warm embrace. "Good to see you both again. It's good to see you all again...some I don't think I've met, though." He eyed Angel suspiciously but didn't let the brooding figure in the corner deter him from his mission. "How did things go?"
"Huh? Oh, sorry...it's just been a really weird day." Buffy snapped out of her daze, as Willow started to rub her thumb
over her hand in a soothing pattern.
"Yeah! Buffy died, and everything!" Xander walked back into the room, Fred behind him.
"Wow! Harsh." Cordelia stood beside Angel, trying to keep out of the way.
"I should have known that wouldn't stop you." Giles enveloped Buffy in another warm embrace, indicating that he was proud of her recovery. Just then, a nurse stood outside the door, pushing a plastic bed with a baby neatly tucked inside.
"I'm afraid that there are too many people in the room; only four are allowed at a time." The robust nurse watched all of them march out the door, giving Buffy and Willow time with their baby. It would be their first family meeting. "Hello, girls. Good to see you both better." She shut the door behind the gang, and brought a chart out to start taking Buffy's vitals again. "How are you both feeling?"
"Is that our baby?" Willow was about to cry. She was so beautiful, with her puffy red cheeks, and little shock of red hair atop her head. Her little baby fingers, and her little baby toes. The way her eyes were crinkled shut in sleep, fingers twitching in motion.
"She is beautiful. You've done well for yourselves. Dr. Olivia just left, and said that she had never been prouder of a couple, and couldn't wait to see you again. She had another delivery in LA she had to rush to, though, so she couldn't stay." The nurse finished taking Buffy's blood pressure, glad that everything was back to normal.
"Did she say why I went into labor a month early?" Buffy couldn't deter her gaze from the slumbering baby in the basket. That had come out of her body. They made this little girl, and now she was here.
"Yes, actually. She mentioned that it was due to your abnormal adrenaline; that it rushed the baby's growth along inside your body, and knocked off an entire month. So, instead of a July 4th baby, you have a June 1st baby." The robust nurse marked a few more things on Buffy's chart before asking the million-dollar question. "The girls and I gave her a tentative name until you woke, so that we could finish procedure but what are you going to name her, so that I can make it official?"
"What did you name her?" Willow looked at the nurse, curious.
"Joyce." The smiling nurse picked up the sleeping girl, holding her carefully before taking her to her mommies. "Here she is."
"Hey, baby." Buffy held her little bundle of joy for the first time, and had never been happier in her life. Looking up at Willow, both of their eyes were flowing tears, understanding the gift they had been given, and the angelic blessing from Buffy's mother because of the name.
"Hey, baby." Willow bent over her wife, and used her good hand to gently run her fingertips across the baby's red patch.
"So, what would you like to name her?" The nurse helped Buffy start her first lesson at breast-feeding, as the little girl suckled her breast in her half-awake state, holding Willow's finger tightly around her free hand.
"I'm sure this sounds strange but I've been thinking a lot lately about names, since I've been at a block in my book..."
"I knew your name sounded familiar. You're the author of those chosen one novels, about killing the vampires." The nurse's face lit up, and it was easy to see she was a fan.
"Uh, yeah...but...naming the baby here..." Buffy was tired, and wanted to make the proposal already. The baby had gone far too long without a proper name.
"Right. Sorry." The nurse blushed, as she showed Buffy how to stop the milk from secreting.
"I know it sounds funny but it means something important." Buffy looked down at their little girl, and wiped her mouth gently before looking up adoringly at her wife.
"What is it, Buf?" Willow was shits and giggles, and a little doped up right now.
"Elita Bracha Rosenberg-Summers." Buffy watched her wife for a reaction but only got the confused eyebrow scrunch she loved to see. She missed Willow. "Elita is Latin for 'the chosen one,' and Bracha is Hebrew for 'a blessing.' It's a strong name, one that I'm sure we'll all hear grief about but one that holds more than a little meaning for both of us." She waited for her wife's reaction, as the redhead pondered the name quietly in her head. Smiling down at the blonde, Willow kissed the baby's forehead first, and then came back up to place a gentle, tender kiss on Buffy's lips, gladly accepted.
"I think it sounds perfect." Willow smiled adoringly at her wife again before needing another kiss, and another, and another.
"Well, girls. I'll leave you to Elita here, and fix all the paperwork to make her official." The nurse left the room, and the others stayed in the hall, allowing the girls a moment alone together with their little girl.
"Elita Bracha...we can call her EB for short!" Willow got excited, as she snuggled into her wife, as they snuggled their little girl, who had finally opened her eyes to catch her first glance at her mommies. Instead of crying like some babies, Elita gave a hint of a smile, and cooed at the two beautiful women that would raise her, and love her with total abandon.
"Sounds great, Will." Buffy leaned over to kiss Willow again, and almost couldn't stop, having been denied these lips for so long now. The baby stopped them, as she started to make gurgling noises in a form of newborn baby laughter. "She's so beautiful; she has your hair."
"She has your nose."
"She has your mouth."
"She has your eyes."
"She has your ears."
"She has your...okay, I ran out of body parts. She's just too cute." Willow couldn't stop staring at Elita, their little girl. Not even twenty-four hours ago, she was ready for a day off, and now she couldn't wait to start her family again. Things were okay again in Sunnydale, and for once, they could only go up from here.
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Aww....little baby...