Giles knew everyone was staring at him with expressions of surprise and disbelief, but he could not seem to process anything. Everything around him had an unreal quality, as though he was in the middle of a dream or a nightmare, and he had to blink several times before he could even focus on his aunt. He stared at her, trying to see the lie in her eyes. But it was not there. She was . . . telling the truth?
"I . . . uh . . . but . . . how?" he managed eventually, aware that his voice sounded hoarse. Below the table he felt Buffy put her hand on his leg and gently squeeze, lending him her support and strength. "I . . . my parents . . ."
"I'd better start from the beginning, hadn't I?" Mary said carefully.
"That would be appreciated," Giles said, not even sure how he was forming the words when his mind seemed to have completely shut down.
"Very well." Mary took a sip of her tea and looked around thoughtfully before fixing her gaze on Giles again. "Do you remember your father mentioning Louisa?"
Giles nodded. "His Slayer. She died before I was born."
"Yes," Mary nodded sadly. "She was my twin. We did everything together. Even after all these years I keep expecting to see her next to me and when something happens it's hard not to think 'I must tell Louisa'. She was born just after me and mother always said that she was my shadow."
He watched the older woman with growing fascination, amazed that nobody had ever even told him that Louisa was related to him.
"So when the Watchers came they trained us together," Mary continued. "They knew one of us had the potential to be called as a Slayer, but they couldn't tell which. Mr Cartwright came when we were nine and told us this fantastical story about vampires, Slayers and Watchers. Naturally we didn't believe a word he was telling us. I remember we were sitting in the parlour, still dressed in our school uniforms, while he told us. Louisa just looked at me and I knew that she was trying hard not to laugh. Mr Cartwright just glared at us and that made us giggle even harder. Imagine a grown man, who must have been at least grandpa's age, trying to make us believe in fairy tales!
"We carried on thinking he was a bit mad until two nights later. He took us out to the graveyard and we watched a vampire rise. I don't think we'd ever been so terrified in our lives."
"You were nine?" Buffy asked sympathetically, and Giles could see that she was remembering her own first encounter with a vampire.
"We were nine," she confirmed. "And that night we nearly got killed. The vampire detected us as soon as he was out of the ground and Mr Cartwright couldn't protect us. He tried, but the vampire had him on the ground in seconds. Louise picked up some branches, threw one to me and we ran to the rescue. At first we tried beating the vampire with them, but he just threw Louisa to the ground and carried on attacking Mr Cartwright. So we worked together and somehow, two little girls managed to stake a vampire through the heart. I think that's what finally decided us. I can still remember the look Louisa gave Mr Cartwright when she told him to train us; I think she was disgusted that he nearly let us die.
"Mr Cartwright stayed with us until Louisa was Called when we were fifteen. The Council must have decided that we needed someone younger, who would be better able to look after a Slayer. So they sent Albert to us . . ."
** Mary led the tall man into the parlour and sat down next to Louisa, taking her hand out of habit. He shuffled uncomfortably in front of them while Louisa watched him closely. Out of the corner of her eye Mary watched Louisa, feeling strangely jealous at the way her twin was watching the new Watcher. Physically the two girls were identical, with the same blonde hair, blue eyes and gangly height. However Louisa was the shyer of the two, despite her status as active Slayer, and Mary was usually the leader. Just as she was now, taking charge of the meeting while her twin simply stared at the Watcher.
"So, you're the new Watcher," she said, not even trying to mask her resentment of the stranger intruding into their lives.
"Uh, yes," the young man said uncertainly. "Albert Giles, at your service."
He held out his hand and Mary shook it, squeezing tightly to let him know that she was not intimidated in the slightest.
"I'm Mary, and this is Louisa," she said, "the Slayer. You'll be training us."
"Both of you?" he asked, visibly surprised. "I was given to understand that only one of you had been called."
"And?" Mary asked, glaring at him. "Where my sister goes, I go. I'm not letting her go through this alone."
"Slayers have to be alone," Albert insisted. "Civilians will only get hurt."
Mary frowned. "I'm not a civilian. I've had as much training as Louisa has. I may not have all her supernatural powers but I can fight, probably better than you can. I won't let her go out there without back up."
Albert took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. "I understand you're concerned for your sister. But you must accept that she no longer requires your help. The best thing you can do for her is to get on with your life."
She ignored him and turned to her twin. "Lou?"
Reluctantly Louisa dragged her eyes away from the new Watcher. "Mare, I don't want you to be hurt. I think Mr Giles is right. You were going to be a nurse before; you still can be."
Mary felt her eyes fill with tears. "But we've never done anything separately. I don't even know how."
Louisa hugged her tightly and stroked her hair. "Hush, Mare. It's all right. Maybe it's time we found our own ways."
***
Over the following months Mary resumed her studies and Louisa trained with Albert. The months turned into years and eventually they passed their seventeenth birthday. It was a few weeks after their birthday that Mary received the letter informing her she had been accepted into the Royal College of Nursing. As she always had, she first sought out her sister to tell her the good news.
"That's great Mare!" Louisa said, hugging her twin happily. "Now you'll be a nurse and I'll . . . Lou, I need to tell you something. Promise you won't be mad that I kept a secret?"
"Lou, I could never be mad at you," Mary said affectionately.
Louisa smiled shyly and began picking at the bedspread. They were sitting in their room and their parents were out. Even though they were nearly adults, it would never have occurred to them to demand their own bedrooms. They had never spent a night apart and both of them dreaded the day that they would have to face that separation.
"Lou, whatever it is I'm sure it's fine," Mary added, trying to reassure her twin.
Finally Louisa looked up. "You know Alb-Mr Giles? Of course you do, silly me. I don't know where my mind is right now."
Mary smiled knowingly. "I do. I've seen the way you look at him."
"You have?"
"Uh-huh."
"Mare . . . he feels the same way. He loves me." The smile on Louisa's face was almost blinding. "We love each other and we're going to marry."
For a frozen moment Mary felt as though the bottom had dropped out of her world before she managed to summon up something approaching a smile. "That's wonderful. I'm so happy for you."
She hugged her twin and held her tightly for a moment before releasing her. "Have you told mother and father yet?"
Louisa shook her head vigorously. "No! They'll hit the roof. I'm going to wait until I'm eighteen. Albert understands and he'll wait. I may be the Slayer but I truly believe that I'll make it."
"It's only six months. What can happen in six months?"
***
Unfortunately more can change in a few weeks than anyone can ever anticipate. It was less than a month later when Mary returned from school to find Louisa crying in their shared bedroom. She was sobbing as though her heart was breaking and Mary immediately dropped her bags and sat down on the bed next to her twin.
"Lou, what's wrong?" she asked, gently rubbing Louisa's back. "Is it Albert? Did he do something? Please, tell me what's wrong."
Louisa sat up and threw herself into Mary's arms. Her eyes were red from crying and her sobs shook her so hard that Mary became even more worried. "Lou?"
"Oh . . . oh . . . Mare . . ." Louisa sobbed. "I . . . oh . . . I . . ."
Mary hushed and rocked her slowly until Louisa's tears began to subside. Eventually they did and Louisa slowly pulled back. Mary produced a handkerchief and wiped away the tears.
"Lou, please tell me what's wrong?" she begged.
Louisa took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm . . . I'm pregnant. Mare, I'm going to have a baby."
Mary gently brushed Louisa's hair away from her face. "Well, that's all right. I know Albert would never leave you and you were going to marry anyway. So why the tears?"
"You don't understand." Louisa took another shaky breath and straightened to look into her twin's eyes. "Mare, no Slayer ever survives pregnancy."
"What do you mean?"
"There's some kind of demon that comes after us. It wants to use the baby to open a gateway into hell and release all the old demons. If I even make it through the pregnancy these *things* will kill me and take the baby." Louisa sniffed. "Mare, I'm going to die. Albert doesn't want me to have the baby. He says he'd rather have me than any baby. But I don't think I can kill my baby." **
"Poor thing," Buffy breathed, and in her eyes Giles could see the memory of the day she found out the same thing. "Poor Louisa."
Mary dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. "She was so terrified. I didn't know what to do with her. Of course, we couldn't tell our parents. They had no idea what was happening. They probably would have sent Louisa away and refused to let Albert see her again, which would have been the worst thing in the world they could do."
"I guess we were lucky," Buffy said, looking at Giles.
He smiled at her and raised her hand to his lips, loving the feel of her delicate skin against his. "We were, love."
"Luckier than you know," Mary added. "It was a completely different time then. I took Louisa to Albert to get the full story and he explained. We talked for hours, trying to come up with a plan. Eventually we decided that there was only one thing we could do. Louisa would have to disappear. Hopefully if we acted quickly enough we'd be able to save her. But nothing went the way we planned.
"We staged her death. Two nights after Louisa told me, she went out slaying with Albert. It was nearly dawn when he returned, covered in bruises, and he turned out to be a better actor than I ever thought he could be. He told our parents that Louisa had been killed and her body taken away by a demon. They were devastated and, even though I knew the truth, it wasn't hard for me act grief-stricken. After all, I was losing my sister as much as they were.
"Albert reported Louisa's death to the Council and they arranged everything. I knew we made the right decision about keeping her situation from them as soon as I met their representative. Everything was going according to plan and, the day after her funeral, Albert and I moved onto phase two of the plan. He had bought a small house in a village outside London called Chalfont and we needed to move Louisa there from London. They planned to wait a few days and then move abroad to somewhere safer.
"Unfortunately Lou and I had an older sister, Connie. The night we planned to move Louisa, Connie came home early from a party just in time to see me sneak out of the house and she followed me . . ."
** Mary walked through the streets as fast as she could, a stake clutched in her hand hidden in her pocket. Albert's house was only half a mile away, but it was far enough for her to worry about vampire attacks. She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally reached the house and knocked on the door. Albert answered and beckoned her quickly in. She followed him down the hall to the parlour and was immediately rocked back as Louisa threw herself into her twin's arms.
"Oh, Mare, I've missed you," she said tearfully. "I missed you."
Mary held Louisa so tightly she was surprised that her ribs did not crack, feeling tears run down her own tears. "Lou, I missed you too."
Albert gave them a few minutes together before clearing his throat and looking at his watch. "Louisa, we need to go."
Reluctantly Louisa pulled away from Mary and wiped her eyes. "I know. We need to be in safety before sun-up."
Mary nodded and pulled out her handkerchief to wipe her own eyes. "Are you ready?"
Louisa looked at Albert, who held up a large suitcase. Taking a calming breath Mary took Louisa's elbow and began steering her to the door. Albert darted ahead and opened the door. Louisa and Mary both gasped as they recognised the woman standing at the door.
"Connie!" they exclaimed in unison.
Connie, her dark hair and green eyes a complete contrast to the twins, stared at them in shock. "L-Louisa? But you're dead?"
"Surprise?" Louisa offered helplessly.
"But-but this is great!" Connie said, her face pale but slowly beginning to recover. "We have to tell our parents. I knew you couldn't be dead!"
"No!" Louisa said fiercely. "You can't tell them?"
"Why not?"
"It's complicated. But you can't tell them. My life depends on it."
"Your life? Louisa, what is going on?" Connie demanded.
Louisa looked to Albert pleadingly and he patted her shoulder. "Miss Stewart, why don't you come with us? We're going into the country and we can explain in the car."
Connie was reluctant but eventually agreed to go with them without telling her parents. It took most of the drive to the village before Connie was satisfied and the moon had set by the time they drew up in front of the new house.
"So, this is it," Connie said, looking at the house.
Louisa nodded. "This is it. Do you want to come in?"
Connie hesitated before agreeing and Mary was ashamed to realise that she was praying her older sister would refuse. But she did not and Mary had to follow them into the house. Connie immediately dragged Louisa into the kitchen for a talk leaving Mary help Albert unpack. **
"I have no idea what Connie said to Louisa," Mary explained. "But when they came out the plan had changed."
Mary paused and took a sip of her tea.
"Why do I think this isn't a story with a happy ending?" Willow asked mournfully.
Tara patted her hand. "It might be."
"I don't think it is," the redheaded witch said.
With a small smile her blonde friend gently held her hand. "We know Giles is here. Th-that means it had a semi-happy end."
Giles barely heard them. He was watching Mary intently, waiting for her to continue her story. Now that it had begun, and he knew part of the story, an incredible hunger to know the full story was growing inside him.
Mary smiled at him, her eyes filled with understanding and ageless sadness. "I think you can guess part of it."
He nodded. "Maybe, but I'd still like to know why."
Shaking her head sadly, Mary put her tea down. "I don't really know why, even now. Maybe Louisa couldn't bear to leave her family, maybe she didn't want to leave me . . . it might even be that she simply felt her child shouldn't have live on the run. Whatever the reason was, when she came out of the kitchen with Connie she took Albert into their bedroom and they talked for a long time. I think he knew how this would all end because I could see something terrible in his eyes when they came back. Albert drove Connie and I back to the city without saying a word and we managed to sneak into the house before anyone knew we were gone.
"I found out what the new plan was that night. At supper Connie calmly announced to our parents that she was marrying Albert. Father, of course, was livid and threatened not to give his permission. That was when Connie announced that she was pregnant and they would be marrying next week, thank you very much. I'm still amazed Father didn't have a heart attack when she told him that.
"There was nothing they could do though. Connie was nearly twenty, so she was perfectly old enough to marry. And it was the mid-fifties so having an unmarried pregnant daughter would have scandalised the family. Father had no choice and had to allow the marriage. They were wed the next week, on a Tuesday as I recall, with just our parents, the witnesses and me to attend her. As soon as the ceremony was over they went to the house in Chalfont to set up house with Louisa.
"The power of foresight is a terrible thing. At the time I hated Connie for what she did to Louisa, but with reflection I can't help wondering if she didn't have the worse end of the deal."
"Why?" Buffy asked.
"Child, could you marry a man knowing that he would never return your love, that your sister was the woman he would always love, and knowing that the child you were going to raise was the product of that love?" Mary asked.
Buffy looked at Giles and he could see the thoughts and feelings flickering across her face. "No, I couldn't."
"Connie did." The white haired woman sighed and stared thoughtfully into her teacup. "She knew that Albert would always love Louisa. I should have known how she felt when she insisted on going to Chalfont with us on that first night, but I was so caught up with our plan that I didn't. Connie loved Albert and I think she hoped that he would eventually love her for what she was doing for her sister. But he didn't and the child was a constant reminder of what he had lost.
"Throughout Louisa's pregnancy they lived there. Louisa was hidden in the attic of the little house and Connie pretended to be pregnant. I think Albert spent most of his time in the attic with Louisa and would never have left her if he hadn't needed to maintain the fiction that nothing unusual was happening. I began my training and learnt everything I could about childbirth and midwifery, and I visited Louisa every chance I had. Albert began teaching me something of magic and spell-casting so that we could shield that house and I think by the time Louisa went into labour that place could have survived a nuclear war, the Apocalypse and the Second Coming without a scratch."
** "Push!" Mary commanded, willing her twin onwards. "You can do it, keep pushing!"
Louisa pushed with all her strength, a low moan rising to a scream as the contraction ripped through her body. Next to her Albert winced but kept murmuring encouragements. The huge double bed in the attic was covered with towels and blankets and they had now been working for ten hours. Mary was acting as midwife with her books nearby. She wished that they dared to call the village midwife to attend but it was too dangerous, both for the midwife and for Louisa.
At the window Connie watched the gathering dusk. The foam padding in her dress looked remarkably life-like and Mary had been forced to remind herself several times over the months that Connie was not really pregnant.
"There's something moving outside," Connie announced.
Mary ignored her, concentrating instead on checking the baby while Louisa rested between contractions. "Lou, you're doing fine. I think you just need one more big push and we'll have the head out. Then you can rest."
"I'm not sure I can," Louisa said tearfully. "I'm so tired Mare, I don't think I can push anymore."
"Hush, love," Albert said soothingly, pushing her damp hair off her forehead. "I know you can do it."
Another contraction began to move through Louisa and there was no time for her to argue. She mustered all of her failing strength and began pushing with all her might. Mary and Albert could only watch and encourage, hoping that some of their strength could bolster Louisa's.
Eventually, after what seemed to be a lifetime, Mary shouted. "Stop pushing! Lou, I have the head. I need you to stop pushing so I can deliver the shoulders."
Louisa obeyed, falling back against the pillows. Carefully Mary twisted the shoulders to free them and eased the baby out. For one, long, heart-stopping moment there was silence and then the baby gave a lusty wail. Mary sighed with relief and quickly cut the cord before handing the tiny creature to her twin.
"He's a boy, Lou," she said softly. "You have a son."
The matching smiles on Albert and Louisa's faces combined relief, joy and a tinge of bittersweet sadness. The tall Watcher gently kissed his love's forehead and whispered something too quietly for Mary's ears to pick up. Whatever it was, though, Louisa heard and she turned her head to meet his lips softly.
"Albert, meet your son," she said, rocking the baby.
"Hello there," Albert whispered, stroking his son's hair.
"Have you thought about names?" Mary asked, feeling tears well up in her eyes.
Louisa and Albert exchanged glances and then she turned to Mary. "He's called Rupert."
***
A couple of hours later Mary finally had some time alone with her new nephew. Louisa was asleep, worn out from the birth, and Connie was in the kitchen making tea. Mary lost track of Albert but assumed he was somewhere in the house. She had extracted a sleeping Rupert and taken him downstairs for a more thorough check and bath than she had been able to manage in the attic.
Although he was only a couple of hours old she could already see the resemblance to his mother in his eyes and the shape of his mouth. His nose was Albert's and she thought that his eyes would probably be green like his father's.
"You're going to be a little heartbreaker, aren't you?" she mused thoughtfully.
Rupert gurgled at her and crossed his eyes.
Mary laughed and softly brushed his cheek.
"How is he?"
Albert's voice behind her startled Mary and she jumped, squeaking, before relaxing with a hammering heart.
"Don't do that!" she said fiercely. "I could have dropped Rupert."
"He's lying on the shelf," Albert pointed out. "Even I couldn't drop him from there."
She glared at him and turned back to the baby, who had now discovered his foot and was industriously waving it in the air.
Albert approached his son and looked questioningly at Mary. "May I?"
She nodded and he pulled something out of his pocket. Before she could do anything he fastened a tiny leather necklace around his neck. A small piece of amber hung from the strip of leather and, even to her relatively novice eyes, the stone glowed with magic.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Protection," Albert replied. "The demons that want Rupert can sense him but this shield blocks that. They won't be able to tell that he's here."
Mary paced to the window and looked outside, in time to see a large piece of shadow cross the lawn. "They already know. You can't hide him. You should have gone while you had the chance."
The tall Watcher shook his head. "They can sense Louisa, not Rupert. I couldn't make her leave. They won't leave until they have both of them."
As Mary watched she saw an unfortunate young couple walking down the lane outside, hand-in-hand. "Albert, there are innocents out there. You can't let them . . ."
"I'm not going to."
He pointed and Mary looked out of the window again. A shape flitted away from the house, it's white dress making it glow in the moonlight.
"Louisa," Mary breathed, horrified. "But she can't . . . she's only just given birth. Albert, you have to stop her!"
He shook his head and she saw the pain in his eyes, destroying his soul. "I can't. She made me promise."
Mary shook her head and rushed from the room, down the stairs and to the front door. Connie was guarding it with a determined expression. Albert, following closely behind Mary, put out a restraining arm and just managed to stop her pushing Connie aside.
"No!" she screamed. "I have to go to her!"
"You can't!" Connie shouted back. "It's too late."
Even as Mary struggled she saw Louisa hold up a bundle that wriggled and moved just like a baby. Just as abruptly, Louisa dropped the bundle to the ground.
"Stop her!" Mary cried despairingly.
"We can't," Albert said sadly. "She had to do this - we couldn't see any other way. The demons think she's killed the child. They can't find it or sense it so they'll believe he's dead."
Mary shook her head. "No, they'll kill her."
Albert bowed his head and Mary began to shake.
The horror of that moment was too much and she began kicking, screaming and struggling before finally exhausting herself and sagging against Albert. For a long time they stood that way, holding each other as the woman they both loved more than life sacrificed her life for her son. **
Giles could feel the tears on his face and when he looked around nobody had dry eyes, even Anya. Mary's face was blank as she relived those terrible moments but the horror and pain in her eyes, even forty years later, was heart wrenching. He felt Buffy's hand taking his again and closed his eyes as her love and strength poured over him.
***
But he could not let the emotions touch him until he was alone with Buffy later that night. Then, and only then, did he break down. He sat on their bed in her arms allowing her to rock him slowly as he cried for the mother he never knew.
*finis*