"Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience."
~ Elbert Hubbard
"Without continual growth and progress, such words such as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning."
~ Benjamin Franklin
Willow appeared and updated the group, “Well I got good news and bad news. Good news is we know their exact location. Bad news is, Buffy’s body would reject the baby. Her body probably has no idea it even had a baby in it much less being ready for the baby. The coven isn’t sure how to do that. It’s really powerful magic and they could probably do it if they had the spells and such but they don’t.”
Spike spoke up as Buffy frowned at Willow’s news, “I can cover that but it’s a lot of work and it takes some major magic.”
He handed Willow the book and the paper he took the notes down from and watched as Willow’s eyes got big. Willow finally put up her finger, “Um, hold on a minute.”
Willow closed her eyes and suddenly 6 other flashes of light appeared. Buffy questioned, “How many of you is there in total?”
A lady with flowing blond hair spoke up, “There are 13 of us but we only allow 6 out of the coven at a time to be safe. Anya actually makes 14 at the moment, hence why 7 of us can be out at once.”
Buffy nodded and the lady continued to talk, “I’m Haven by the way. Buffy, dear, we need you to come with us. Have you eaten?”
Buffy shook her head and Haven sighed and closed her eyes and a meal appeared before Buffy. Haven said to Buffy, “Eat up. You will definitely need your strength for this and we will also need your vampire for his. We need to interlace both of your bloods together to ensure that the baby isn’t aborted. We will go over the other details later. Vampire, have you eaten?”
Spike shook his head and offered, “Name is Spike.”
Haven closed her eyes again and blood appeared in a goblet before Spike. He took a sip and looked at her exclaiming, “You and Willow provide the best tasting blood.”
Haven smiled gently, “Special blend.”
Spike didn’t ask but drank up and then watched as Buffy ate and he picked a carrot from her plate and ate it. She giggled, “How do you know that isn’t some baby making formula?”
Haven smiled shaking her head, “Nothing but good ole fashion vitamins and minerals in there to ensure they are in sync and to prepare you for holding a baby.”
Buffy continued to eat and ate up her whole plate of vegetables, lean beef and potatoes. When she was finished the plate disappeared and Buffy stood up taking Spike’s hand.
Haven smiled and told Oz and Giles, “We will return when we are done the ritual.”
Willow planted a kiss on Oz’s lips and Anya gave Xander a kiss and then they disappeared. Xander looked at the other two men shrugged slightly gesturing towards the food they had returned with, “More food for us I guess. Who wants the blood?”
Everyone made a face and they dug in and ate everything but the blood.
The witches had Buffy sitting on a comfortable chair surrounded by salt. Haven said to Spike, “Can we have a little more blood? We can provide more to make sure you are up to strength afterwards and we need more from you, Buffy.”
Buffy held out her hand for his pocket knife and he handed it to her and she sliced her hand and again filled a vial handing the knife and holding out her hand to Spike who grinned closing the wound, “I could get used to this.”
Buffy giggled and rested back in the chair, leaving Spike to fill a vial as well. Haven took the vials and put them in their own protective salt circle and began to chant. Buffy watched as both vials turned white and glowed before another darker hair lady chanted something else while a third chanted a third chant. Then the vials were gone and left behind was a glass of liquid. Haven picked up the glass and handed it to Buffy, “I’m sorry dear but you must drink this.”
Buffy made a face, “Will it still taste like blood?”
Haven shook her head, “It won’t have much flavor but I’d rather not tell you what it is exactly.”
Buffy nodded and made a face and drank the tasteless liquid down. She signaled for everyone to leave the circle and began to chant watching as Buffy glowed white like the vials and then the other two started chanting as before. Then all was quiet and Haven nodded explaining, “Step 1 is complete. You will not abort the baby but your body right now cannot sustain it. You can sit with Spike for a bit f you would like to rest while we work on step 2.”
Buffy moved sideways to make room for Spike. Spike picked her up and rested her on his lap and she yawned feeling tired. Spike was tired too but was too worried to sleep. Willow whispered to both of them seeing their yawning, “This place is safe and your baby is still safe even if it’s not a part of you. You two can sleep, in fact please do. This will be a while.”
Spike noticed Anya was curled up in the corner of the room sleeping and felt Buffy give in to closing her eyes so he wrapped his arms around her and repositioning himself to rest his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes as well to sleep.
Spike woke up to Buffy stirring around and hearing Willow whisper, “Spike, Buffy, we are ready for step 2. Please wake up you two. We will have one more step to complete after this one.”
Spike nudged Buffy and she gave in to opening her eyes. Spike picked Buffy up and moved out from under her and left her in the seat where she rubbed her eyes and sat up.
She questioned, “Why am I so tired?”
Haven replied in her soft voice, “You have gone through a trying ordeal. You had some weakening drugs put in you yesterday, you were reading earlier today and you found out you had a baby only to lose it less than 3 minutes later. This is not even mentioning your tears and our spells. You need all the rest you can gather to be strong for this baby.”
Buffy nodded and waited for instructions. Haven stepped into the circle and whispered, “This step might hurt a little and for that I’m sorry. It might cause cramping and abdominal pain. What we need to do is prepare your system by filling your uterus with blood. I’m guessing when the baby was taken away the seer took your blood as well but we will not be doing that with putting it back. All our spell will do is move the fetus. You will already have a cord we can have attached. Are you ready Buffy?”
Buffy nodded trying to be brave and Spike sent her a strengthening smile, “You can do this Buffy. You are strong. You’re the Slayer. I’ve seen you go through worse.”
Buffy nodded and sat a little straighter as the chanting began. All 14 witches had joined hands and started to chant loudly. Spike remained standing as though ready to jump into the salt with her. The salt circle started to glow and fire erupted around it and Spike’s eyes got worried. He repeated in his head over and over again, “She is immortal, she is immortal.”
He heard her groaned and had to fight not to rush by her side. She cried out as they continued chanting and he was dying watching. He wanted to go hold her but they continued to chant ignoring her pain. Her face contorted up as she groaned and cried out again, “Oh God this hurts!”
She gripped the sides of the chair in obvious pain as Spike vamped out from restraining himself so badly. He had blood dripping from his hands from digging in his nails so hard and didn’t even notice when the witches stopped chanting. He did notice when the fire died down and he looked over at Haven who nodded and he rushed to her side and wrapped her in his arms trying to protect her from the tears that were falling from her eyes. He whispered, “Oh pet, I couldn’t protect you.”
She wiped her tears, “It’s over now. Only one more step.”
Spike looked up at Haven as he looked at Buffy’s shirt and frowned noticing the blood spots thanks to his bleeding hands and sighed whispering softly, “Will the next step hurt her? I can’t take this.”
Haven shook her head speaking gently to the duo, “No, the next step is easy actually. You can even continue to hold her if you would like. It’s going to cast a protective spell on you both so that your blood won’t be able to be used for this kind of thing again. You’re immortals. I didn’t realize this until I tested the blood earlier today. This means that your blood together is probably the most powerful blood out there and we don’t want that to fall into the wrong hands. So just relax. This will only take a few minutes of chanting and then we will recast the location spell and we can head out.”
Buffy snuggled closer into Spike’s arms and they both felt a slight warmth flow through them as the witches chanted. Spike rested his head on Buffy’s, closing his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the warmth. As a vampire for 120 years, he had never experienced warmth. Now he could experience things like the sun but that was external warmth. This was coming from inside of him.
He felt Buffy let out a sigh and he could tell her pain was gone and together they sat in silence in each other’s arms. After 10 minutes of the witches chanting, they stopped and the warmth disappeared. Haven waved her hand, “We are done here. Anya and Willow join your friends in Vegas and I’ll be sending Spike and Buffy back in a minute behind you.”
Both girls disappeared leaving Spike and Buffy.
Haven spoke gently to the two immortals explaining, “You are important champions. You have being given a great and powerful gift.”
Spike interrupted her, “Yeah immortality is great. We can do a lot of good with that.”
Haven held up her hand and shook her head, “Immortality is not what I am talking about. I’m talking about your children. With the magic Willow did, she stopped the normal flow of slayers. After the last slayer dies, there will never be another slayer called. The Powers-that-be have decided you two are their solution. You were made immortal to solve the lack of future slayers. You will instead have warriors born from you. They will have the strength of a slayer, the speed of a vampire, the senses of a vampire, and the abilities of a slayer. They will be the most powerful of everyone and will be responsible in helping to keep the world a safe place. You will be responsible for these new warriors as they will be your children. They will be mortals but will be strong enough to fight.”
Buffy frowned, “So I get to live forever to continuously have babies? I don’t want to be a huge cow immortal.”
Haven laughed, “You will be just as you are now forever. No bigger, no smaller. Any weight you gain during your pregnancy will be worked off easily. You are a slayer Buffy, with the metabolism, speed and strength. As long as you always follow your destiny, you will stay as you are.”
Buffy smiled taking Spike’s hand in hers and squeezing it gently.
Haven continued, “It is time for you two to go back and save your baby girl. Be wise on what you decide to do with Ethan and Wilda. I protected this baby but they have many years left and you will have many babies yet to come.”
Buffy stood up and Spike followed and as they still held each other’s hands, Haven whispered, “Be safe” as they disappeared in a flash.