A/N: Ok, now Cyn, Aaliyah, and Lillith really didn't have any regrets for doing what they had to do. Now for a personal note on the subject matter. It really is hard to write about slayers. That means I have to think up new and interesting things for OC's to die about. So if Buffy seems out of character, sorry, but I'm focusing on new dead slayers (still sounds weird). This chapter, like the last will either be about two or three slayers. Now, for major spoilers.

We're getting into major S 7 spoilers here, folks. Which means, I'm writing about Nikki Wood. So, no spoil? Then don't read. Although, I think nearly everyone already knows the story.

Chapter Eight: This Is The Price That Must Be Paid

Buffy was completely perplexed. They didn't regret it. They did what they had to do to save people, especially when the odds were stacked against them. Lily just stood there, waiting for her like she always seemed to be. The door this time was smaller - not as old fashioned as the others had seemed to be.

"Ready, then?" Lily said softly.

"Its -" She paused in front of the door, her hand just above the handle.

"Are they all either the grieving or the fulfilled?" Lily finished.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Some, like Cyn - are happy to be at peace, but they still grieve for what they have been denied. We are none of us, old women, Buffy." Lily sighed. "We were robbed of a normal life. Some of us had the time to come to grips with it, but many of us did not."

Lily simply gave a sad smile, her eyes locked on the door knob. It made sense, in a way. She'd done the same thing to make sure Dawn had a chance. She hadn't been like that in the beginning, but then she'd had more time than most slayers. Twisting the knob, she made her way over the threshold.

At first, Buffy wasn't quite sure where she was. She could hear the ocean, smell it. But it was different than she remembered.

"It's not your ocean." Lily pointed to a woman, maybe a year or two older than Buffy.

Sunlight played over the woman's caramel colored skin, and her hand rested on her very pregnant belly. She wore a loosely wrapped floral dress around her. Her dark hair rustled past her face. Then her daggers came out. One flew into the nearby head of a blubbery looking demon. The other went to the throat of the man who summoned it. He knelt before her, cowering in fear. Her hand had returned to where her child presumably slept.

"Her name is Iolana. She carries her and her watcher's child." Lily said softly.

"Ew." Buffy went to the scary visual place.

"He didn't look like or act like your watcher. He was her best friend. Her first watcher was killed two days after she was chosen. She gave him all of her books, so that he could take over until the council could send another watcher." Lily sighed. "Kale was his name."

Iolana stared down into his eyes, sadness as she looked at the man she'd loved. Tears seemed to be in his eyes as well, pleading with her as her dagger hand stayed steadily aimed at his throat.

"How could you?" She hissed, her eyes narrowing in anger. "You -"

"Please, Iolana! I am your - I never meant it!" He pleaded.

"You have betrayed your blood, Kale." She hissed, but he wasn't watching her face. He lunged forward, twisting her wrist back and aiming the blade at her belly.

"You always were so gullible, Iolana. You were never the sacrifice -" His vacant expression broke into a sadistic grin as he plunged the blade into her.

She gasped in pain, as blood formed around the blade's handle. Iolana grasped the handle, digging her nails into his flesh. Tearing the blade from her belly, she slammed it into the side of his head. She fell to her knees, blood trickling between her fingers. The wound was deep and mortal.

"Slayer?" A voice called, pulling her from the trance she'd fallen into. "Iolana? Oh, God." A dark haired British woman rushed to her side

"The baby . . ."

"We need to get you medical help."

"Too late for that, take the knife, free the baby."

"No."

"I'm getting colder. Take it to safety." Iolana began to shake.

The other woman quickly worked to free the child, tears and sweat pouring down her face as Iolana became paler by the second. When a weak wail pierced the air, Iolana's breathing was more erratic.

"It's a girl, Iolana. What shall I call her?"

"Noelani. Name her that, Lodema." She moved no more, and Lodema rose with the small child wrapped in the rags of her mother's torn dress.

"The babe was lucky. The blade only nicked her shoulder, and she was stuck with that scar for life." Iolana said softly, coming to stand beside Buffy. "But better a scar than no life at all."

"But she lived."

"Yes. She grew, under the watch of Lodema." Iolana sighed heavily, "Sometimes, lovers change on us. Kale did. But then I don't really need to tell you about that. You already know that."

"Yeah, I guess I do." Buffy remembered Angelus, and remembered how he got that way.

"I stopped the sacrifice." Buffy was jogged out of her own memories by Iolana's voice.

"Didn't -"

"I sacrifice myself? I suppose. Kale was supposed to shed the blood of an unborn child, but she turned as his blade went in. Had Lodema not taken the child from me, a powerful chaos demon would have been released."

"Oh."

"These are the small sacrifices we make for our children. A slayer never learns from her predecessors mistakes. We're not allowed to read the diaries. Our children learn, and there are more of them out there than the Council knows of." Iolana stood on the cliff, her hair blowing in the breeze. "They learn through our examples. Noelani is an old woman now, a mother and wife. The things I could not be for her, save for my parting gift."

"Her life."

Buffy found herself back out in the green rolling hills of her heaven. Lily wasn't beside her, however. Iolana was.

"Lily never experienced this, so she cannot show you. She should not even have showed you my life."

"Whose life is this?" Buffy asked as she slid through the doorway into a darkened alleyway.

"Nikki Wood. She was different than me. She had her son at seventeen, and became a slayer at nineteen. She died when he was four."

"So she lived for three years."

Rain poured down as a tall, lithe black woman fought off a bleached blonde vampire. Her kick sent him tumbling into the ground, but he wasn't down for long.

"Spike." Buffy murmured.

"Well, all right. Got the moves, don't you? I'm gonna ride you hard before I put you away, luv." His blood was pumping, figuratively speaking.

"You sure about that? You actually look a little wet and limp to me. And I ain't your "luv."" Nikki tossed back, as her foot flung out to restart the fight.

There was movement at the bench near Buffy. A little boy peeked through the slats of the bench, watching the fight. Spike overpowered the slayer, pushing her to the ground and straddling her, his fists pounding into her face. Nikki grabbed his arm and sent him flying off of her as her son watched. Her punch connected with Spike, but he grabbed in and twisted around to get an opening at her neck.

Fear washed over the little boy, who rose suddenly, knocking over the trash can beside him, startling Spike. This gave Nikki an opening, and she flung her head back into his face, freeing herself from Spike. With a series of elbow blows and punches, she managed to knock him to the ground. She yanked out a stake and threw it at his heart, but he caught it before it could pierce his heart. He grinned.

"I spent a long time trying to track you down. Don't want the dance to end so soon, do you, Nikki? The music's just starting, isn't it?" He tossed the stake back at her, and it hit the pavement. He started to walk away, but turned and latched onto a lamp post. He swung around to face her. "By the way...love the coat." He walked away.

"Leave it to Spike to come up with a lame line like that."

"Mamma!" The little boy called to Nikki, who went to him, squatting down to face her son.
"You did a good job, baby boy. You stayed down just like mamma told you."

"Can we go home now?"

"Uh-uh. It's not safe there anymore. How 'bout I leave you over at Crowley's house, and you can play with those spooky doodads that you like."

"No, I wanna stay with you."

Nikki spared a glance over her shoulder before facing her son again. "Yeah, I know you do, baby. But remember, Robin, honey what we talked about. Always got to work the mission." Robin looked down, clearly upset. "Look at me. You know I love you, but I got a job to do. The mission is what matters...right?" He nodded. "That's my boy. Come on."

Nikki rose, her son's hand in hers. As they started to walk away, Robin turned around and suddenly ran back to grab his mother's stake.

"Robin?"

The street transformed suddenly, and Buffy was on the subway. Spike and Nikki were dueling it out, much like he had shown her in the alley behind the Bronze. Spike's head went through the glass, and he let out an ecstatic cry. He wrenched a metal handrail from the subway car and wielded it like he had the pool stick. He sent her to the floor of the car, pounding the handrail into her. As Spike brought the rail down for another blow Nikki caught it and slammed it back into his face. Spike fell to the floor and Nikki was on him in a second, straddling his chest. She pounded him repeatedly in the face as the car's lights flickered out. When they came back on, Nikki was on her back with Spike straddling her, his hands wrapped tightly around her throat. Nikki struggled beneath Spike, but it was no good. He gripped Nikki's head between his hands and twisted violently, snapping her neck. Her body ceased fighting, and her eyes went lifeless.

He walked to the end of the car and yanked on the emergency cord. As the train grounded to a halt, he returned to the dead Slayer and strips her of her black leather duster.

In an uptown apartment, Little Robin cried his eyes out as the policeman told Crowley that his mother was dead.

"Maybe I should have stayed with my boy. But I couldn't give Spike the satisfaction of giving up."

"You left your son to go kill a vampire." Buffy said stiffly, her arms wrapping around her as she remembered the little boy's tears. Nikki's spine stiffed.

"I didn't plan on him killing me."

"But he did."

"Yeah, and my son learned that you have to put the mission first. He got a strong work ethic."

"Doesn't replace the mother he lost."

"No. But I played by the rules life dealt me." Nikki walked away from her, leaving her in the green grass.

"Nikki doesn't think she did anything wrong. But she taught her son that he came second all the time." Buffy said to Iolana.

"It helped her work through. She was a child. I don't think she really knew how to balance both." Iolana led her to another door. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah." But Buffy couldn't help thinking that there was something wrong with Nikki's attitude.

A/N 2: Cutting it short there. More mother slayers and Iolana in the next chapter.

The Meanings:

Hawaiian

Kale strong and manly

Iolana to soar like an eagle

Noelani A beautiful girl from heaven

Old English

Lodema A guide or leader

Nikki - The people's victory. From the name Nicole.
Robin - A small bird. A boy or girl's name