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Author's Chapter Notes:
HOLY CRAP! the reviews!! Thank you!!! *dances around* Thanks to spuffettte, me, bernadette, kar, slinky, lara, scarlet, cee, spikeztruluv, ariel angie, sevvy O, franchesca, steph, daisy, brat, jenny, demona 424, shady, tv, stace, lauren, dannii, raspy_luv, niamh, reciprocity, spuffylicious, lys, sarahg, tammyash666, txjmfan, rocco, buffyspikeforever and gemma
a/n-Once again, major thanks to Spikekat for the awesome beta job. And don't worry, I'm not bringing Dru in this story. I only mentioned it to explain Buffy's lack of inquiring where she was. Also, it's not exactly the Initiative, but that will be explained later.

Chapter 4
With a growl of sudden possessiveness that managed to take even him by surprise, he snarled, "Not without me, you're not."

His tone chased her tears and any impending melt-down away, causing her to bristle in response to his overbearing tone. "Excuse me? You go from trying to kill me to Mr.'Tell-Me-What-To-Do' Guy?"

To her surprise, the fierce countenance he wore softened and he took a step forward to slide his cool palm into her much warmer one, lacing his fingers with hers. His eyes dared her to pull away. "Well, yeah. That's my baby in your belly, Slayer. Think that gives me a bit o' say-so."

It was on the tip of her tongue to argue that he had no rights whatsoever, but found she couldn't voice that particular lie. She instinctively tensed when his head tipped in her direction, but refused to pull away. When she felt his tongue gently tracing the throbbing mark on her neck, the sudden gasp that left her throat was unexpected.

Satisfied that his bite had been properly tended to, and that she was no longer in danger of losing any more blood because of his actions, he pulled back and gave her a cocky smile.

Not sure exactly how she should respond, Buffy decided to ignore what he had just done, and more importantly, how it had made her feel. She settled for tossing him a dirty look, yet didn't protest when he led out of the dark alley. Ignored, too, the security she felt with her hand nestled within his.


As they walked along the quiet streets, Buffy found herself reflecting upon the fact that her entire life had changed in the span of mere minutes, yet again.

No words were spoken on the short walk, and upon reaching the motel that was her home for the night, Buffy unceremoniously unlocked the worn-down door.

Knowing that an official invite wasn't required, Buffy merely waved Spike in and watched warily as he stalked into the dimly lit room, his typical swagger in full effect.

"Nice place you got here," he commented dryly, looking around.

Buffy merely shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. She shook off her coat and threw it over the back of the only chair in the room, feeling the intensity of Spike's gaze as it honed in once more on her abdomen.

Strangely, it wasn't the vampire side of him that was cause for her sudden discomfiture, even though his fangs had almost been responsible for her death earlier. Rather, it was the man that had been revealed to her when that cocky mask had slipped that was strangely unnerving. Buffy knew very little about him except what had been shared in relation to his prowess as a 'slayer of slayers'. Yet, there was something different about him. She had sensed it the moment she had locked her eyes on him at the Bronze that first time.

Buffy flinched when she felt the cool touch of his fingers tracing the brutal mark on her neck and she jerked away from the intimate contact angrily, her eyes flashing steely emerald.

He ignored her heated look. "Sorry about bitin' ya, pet. If I'da known, I wouldn't 'ave tried to off ya tonight."

Buffy snorted, finding a morbid amount of humor in that comment. "Yeah, well, if I would have known, I wouldn't have been letting you."

Spike looked at her in surprise, his intense blue eyes questioning, finding himself not wanting to read too much into what she had just said. Lowering himself down into the only chair that occupied the room, he kicked his feet upon the desk, his pose relaxed. He watched as the Slayer turned and headed to the small bathroom.

"You wouldn't have?" he could help but ask.

Buffy stilled and looked over her shoulder at him in confusion, not sure where his question stemmed from.

"If you had known it was mine," Spike began, his eyes searching the haunted green for a glimmer of truth, suddenly realizing that this was important. "...you wouldn't have been letting me have my one good day?"

It dawned on Buffy what he was asking, and the answer was so clear. "No, I wouldn't have. I was just...tired."

Spike didn't need her to elaborate, and he nodded.

"We need to talk."

Buffy sighed. "Yeah. But it's going to have to wait. This thing is squashing my bladder." With that comment, she grabbed a change of clothes and disappeared behind the bathroom door.

****

When Buffy had finished with her bedtime ritual and changed into a pair of oversized sweats that she could still fit into, she found herself exhausted despite the lengthy nap earlier. As she exited the bathroom, she noticed Spike right where she'd left him.

She looked around and realized he had taken the only chair in the room, so she climbed onto the room’s only bed warily. The soft mattress was as welcoming as it had been earlier when it had lulled her into a lengthy slumber and the slayer curled up on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest. Buffy knew he hadn't taken that much blood, but combined with the typically anemic affects of pregnancy, she was exhausted.

Spike watched her, noting her pale complexion and the dark circles under her eyes. He could feel the intensity of her blood in his system, sharpening every sense. Making him feel like he was bloody alive. Only at the same time, it was making him feel ill. His eyes roamed over her tiny body, taking in her bulging tummy before returning to her face – and it suddenly came to him what it was.

Guilt.

Bloody hell.

"Spike?"

It took him a minute to realize she had addressed him. "Wot?"

"Can you hear the baby's heartbeat?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I can now. But it's not normal. Not like the beat of a human baby."

Not like the beat of a human baby....

Buffy closed her eyes, her sigh heavy as she processed this new bit of information.

They flew open again when she felt the mattress dip next to her, her gaze questioning as Spike removed the pillow she held clutched to her chest and he settled on the bed next to her, lying on his side so that he was facing her.


"What are you doing?"

"Shhh."

Buffy didn't protest when she felt his hand work its way under her oversized shirt, fingers splaying against the hard swell. His skin was warm and she figured she could thank herself for that– her slayer’s blood no doubt providing the borrowed heat. But his touch was gentle and oddly, calming.

"It mimics your heartbeat," he finally said.

"Huh?" Her brows drew together in confusion.

"Bite size Spike. Its heart beats in time with yours."

Oh god, he's given it a nickname, Buffy thought with a rush of panic.

"Don't call it that," Buffy ground out, trying to push out images of a blonde haired baby with blue eyes out of her mind.

She watched his eyes turn cold, the previous wonderment and softness gone. "Why?" he demanded, old insecurities rising up and taking a chokehold. Of course the fucking slayer wouldn't want his bastard. How could he ever have fooled himself to think otherwise?

Desperate green eyes bored into his, pleading for him to understand. "Because I don't know if I'll be giving birth to something I'm going to have to kill, is why," she finally admitted softly.

He tensed, tossing her words around. For a vamp who'd prided himself on reading human emotion, he'd more than missed the mark with this one. The chit was bloody terrified of feeling anything for the wee one. "It's the man in this body that manufactures the semen, pet. Not the demon."

Hope filled her eyes. "So it's human?"

He shook his head, already knowing the answer to that. "No. But I reckon the demon will be in the backseat. And if not...," his voice trailed off. "Well, we'll cross that bridge later."

Buffy nodded, understanding what he wasn't telling her. It was his baby and she instinctively knew Spike would never let it be destroyed, no matter how evil it turned out to be.

And oddly, she was ok with that.

"You ok, pet?"

"Just peachy," she commented bitterly.

"So, what happened?"

Buffy looked pointedly down at her abdomen. "Thought it was obvious."

Spike gave an impatient growl. "S'not wot I mean. In... that place."

Buffy wasn't quite quick enough to mask the instinctive fear and panic at the very mention of where she'd been held captive. It suddenly angered her to see Spike's sympathetic look and she lashed out at him, her words the only weapons she had at her disposal right now.  


In a cold and clinical voice, she replied, "They drugged me on patrol one night and when I woke up, I found out they had stolen my slayer strength. They had me in a cage for over a month, and my only time out of that cell was when they shackled me to a gurney and shoved things up my cunt," her voice caught on the unfamiliar crudeness. "Their mission was a roaring success and I was knocked up by demon seed. Then I escaped. The end."

Spike was quiet and Buffy didn't dare look up. Couldn't stand to see the barest hint of compassion on the face of this monster.

Except she was coming to find out that he really wasn't.

The silence crept by, uneasy and tense. Finally, Spike broke it by quietly uttering, "I'm sorry."

If she hadn't been quite so exhausted, she might have dealt with his sincere apology a bit better. As it was, misplaced blame made her see red and she took it out on the creature who had tried to end her life tonight. "You're SORRY? What, sorry that I had my virginity stolen by the military wielding overzealous speculums? Or sorry that I was violated again and again so they could shove your sperm up inside me? Don't tell me, did they give you little porno magazines to read while you jerked yourself off?" Tears of frustration steamed down her cheeks. "Or did you have someone else do it for you?"

Spike's jaw clenched, the cords of his neck becoming more pronounced the longer Buffy lashed out at him.

Buffy could feel the anger practically vibrating off of him, and when his hands came up to grip her upper arms, her glittering hazel eyes locked in challenge with his angry blue.

"No, Slayer, it wasn't a pretty picture like that at all." Spike's voice was furious, yet controlled. "Those fuckers stripped me, chained me up, bloody well starved me, shot me full of I don't know what kind of drugs, then attached some of their fancy little toys to some very sensitive parts of my anatomy." He reached down with one hand and crudely cupped his crotch for emphasis. "They juiced my privates but good, then ordered me to wank off. When I told them where they could shove it, they turned the juice back on. And left it on."

Spike rose up on one elbow to stare down at her, his expression hard. "Sorry to disappoint, but if given the choice to wank off on command or suffer the most excruciating torture of my existence..., -and that is saying a lot because vampire here, we can handle pain. Well, it wasn't really that hard of a choice."

With one more hard look, Spike flopped onto his back, the barely repressed rage and helplessness he had felt during his capture now brought back to light.

He was shocked to feel the hesitant touch of a warm palm wrap itself around one of his tightly clenched fists.

"I'm sorry," came her hesitant apology, causing Spike's eyes to fly to her face. The Slayer was apologizing to him?

"Could have sworn that is what I said to you, then you got all hot and hormonal," Spike replied, studying her out of the corner of his eye.

Rather than the backlash he'd expected to receive, he watched as the slayer's face crumpled, silent tears quickly pooling over and streaming down her hollow cheeks.

Christ, she's so young, he thought, his hand moving of its own volition to wrap around her to pull her closer. Bloody tears... They got him every time. He was such a git.

Sniffling, Buffy allowed the contact and shook her head ruefully. "God, I'm not usually hot and hormonal, as you so eloquently put it. It's just been so...," her voice trailed off as her brain was unable to come up with a word that truly described what the past months had been like. "With the running and stuff."

"I know." And he did, recapture being his biggest fear. It had kept him quiet, not wanting to draw a bit of attention to himself, so unlike his previous Big Bad persona. It wasn't like him to hide. "And then you run into me in this shithole, and I almost off you, but instead you find out that it was my sperm they shoved inside you," he added.

Buffy lifted her tear soaked face sharply. "No, you don't understand. That's been the only good thing that has happened since I escaped."

At his questioning look, Buffy gave him a small hint of a smile. "I guess my bitchy Buffy routine didn't help, did it? See, they didn't tell me what they were doing to me. I had no idea what they had put inside me. We're talking some major freakage here. I had visions of giving birth to Baby Octo-Buffy or something. So to find out that it's yours?" Buffy shrug was deliberately vague. "As far as I'm concerned, that's totally of the good in this scenario. Because at least, hello, human." Before he could argue, she added with a small smile, "Or sorta, anyway."
tbc

a/n-hopefully this answered some questions! *begs to hear what you think*





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