Swings and Roundabouts
Chapter Twelve
Three and a half years ago
“No, no, no, no!” Buffy gazed at the lines on the white stick in horror. This couldn’t be happening, could it? Not again.
She hadn’t thought anything of her sudden tiredness, or the unsettled feeling in her stomach, putting them down to stress. But when she’d realised she’d skipped a period, and the scent of bananas had suddenly started to make her feel queasy—a symptom of the pregnancy she’d tried so hard to forget—she’d had to start facing facts.
Now, the two blue lines showed that she definitely was pregnant. She tried to blink back the tears that filled her eyes and sat down heavily on the closed lid of the toilet.
Mind on auto-pilot, she mechanically tore off a strip of toilet paper, wrapped the test in it and buried it in the trash can.
Out of sight, but not out of mind.
The biggest question? How. Oh, she knew how such a thing happened in theory, but the unexpected side-effect of her night with the blond stranger three months ago was one she thought she’d been protected against.
Laying her hand on her stomach, Buffy tried to imagine it, a baby insider her, at that moment no more than a tiny cluster of cells. The thought made her feel sick, bringing back unwanted memories. She found herself leaning over the bowl of the toilet, her breakfast not tasting nearly as nice on its way back up.
Coughing, she stood on shaky legs, her face pale and her palms sweaty. She splashed water onto her face, grimacing at the picture she made in the mirror: a blotchy, snotty, teary mess. She rinsed her mouth out and took a deep breath, wondering what she should do now. She knew all the options, of course: they’d been drummed into her back when she was seventeen, but things weren’t the same, now. She wasn’t the same.
The phone ringing saved her from making the decision, and she moved into the hallway to answer it, tears filling her eyes once more when she heard the voice on the other end of the line: the one person she needed most in that moment.
“Hi, Mom.”
***
Present Day
Buffy took a sip of her coffee and winced when it burned her tongue. She set the cup back down on the table and looked to Willow expectantly.
“You wanted to talk?”
“Um, yeah.” Willow’s reply came after a lengthy pause during which she shredded the top part of her blueberry muffin.
Buffy waited for a few more moments, her attention momentarily diverted by Grace’s babbling from the stroller beside her. She smiled at her daughter, receiving a toothy grin in return, and smoothed the soft hair back from her face. “Willow? I have to get to Grace’s appointment, soon. And you said it was important, so…”
“Sorry! But I… I’m just not sure how to say this.”
“Spit it out.”
“Okay. So, um… The Dingoes just got a new manager.” Willow shot a quick, nervous glance at Grace before continuing. “A blue-eyed, bleach-blond Brit—named Spike.”
Buffy’s eyes widened and her face drained of colour. “Spike?”
***
Three and a half years ago
“Spike?” Joyce let out a little, incredulous laugh. “You let yourself get pregnant by a man named Spike?”
Buffy sighed. “Yes, Mom. But… it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that, okay?”
“What else am I supposed to think, Buffy? You’re twenty-seven, an adult now.” Joyce tutted. “I can’t believe you’re making the same mistakes as when you were seventeen.”
“Don’t, Mom.” Buffy stood up and turned away, not wanting her mom to see that she was barely holding it together.
“After all you went through back then, I’d have thought you’d be a little more careful! It’s bad enough you slept with this man the same night you met him, but you couldn’t have used protection?”
“I thought I had!” Buffy shouted. “I’m on the pill. I just… I was taking antibiotics. Must have messed things up.” Her face fell, and she sat down on the couch, the fight gone out of her. “I know I’ve screwed up, Mom. You don’t need to tell me. A baby? So not what I wanted.”
“Oh, Buffy…” Joyce sighed and sat down next to her daughter, before pulling her into a hug. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“Keep it.” Buffy put her hand across her stomach and took a deep breath. “I’m not—I can’t go through that again. I don’t feel ready for this. I don’t think I’d ever have felt ready for this. But I’m going to keep the baby.” She paused. “There’s just no other option.”
Joyce nodded. They were silent for several moments, Buffy’s breath hitching as she tried to stop herself from crying.
“Let me get you some water.” Joyce stood, leaving Buffy alone in the living room. She slumped down against the cushions on the couch and closed her eyes. Her world was tilting on its axis, the steady pace her life had settled into over the last few years suddenly upset. She felt stupid, embarrassed that she’d let this happen. Her mom was right; she shouldn’t be repeating the same mistakes she’d made as a teenager.
Limbs feeling suddenly heavy, Buffy drew her legs up against her side and wrapped her arms around a cushion. She drifted off to sleep a few moments later.
***
It was dark when Buffy awoke, and someone—her mom, presumably—had tucked a blanket around her. She felt warm and sleepy, and for a few moments she hovered happily in that space between sleep and wakefulness, before the events of the day came flooding back.
The television was on, the sound the barest of murmurs in the quiet of the room. Her mom was in the armchair, gaze fixed on the screen but with a frown on her face, and Buffy knew that she wasn’t really paying attention to it.
Buffy sat up and stretched, shaking the stiffness out of her limbs. The movement caught Joyce’s attention and the room fell into darkness when the television was switched off a moment later.
They sat in silence for several long moments, and, though the earlier argument had been resolved before Buffy had fallen asleep, she couldn’t help but feel the same acute sense of shame, guilt and even fear as she’d had ten years ago, when she and a nervous Angel by her side had confessed to sleeping together.
Eventually, Buffy broke the quiet with a loud sigh. “Mom, you’re mad at me. I get it. But can we stop with the stony silence? I feel like a kid again.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Joyce replied, after a moment’s thought. “I was, earlier, and I shouldn’t have been. You’re an adult, it’s your life.”
“I know that,” Buffy said, with a watery smile, “but there’s nothing worse than being a disappointment to your parents. I felt like you and Dad were disappointed in me—for a long time, back then. For getting pregnant in the first place and… and for what I did after.”
“Oh, honey.” Joyce got up from the armchair and crossed the room in a flash. She sat next to Buffy on the couch and pulled her into a hug. “I’m not disappointed in you. Worried, yes. I can’t imagine how you must feel.” A frown crossed her face. “I am a little angry at the circumstances, though. A man named Spike, sweetie? Really?”
“Mom!” Buffy elbowed Joyce lightly in the side. “I told you that it wasn’t like that! He was… ” She drifted off, trying to think how best to describe Spike to her mom; it wasn’t as though the words fantastic and sex could feature into the conversation. “He was amazing. Sweet, funny, and it just felt like we had this connection, you know? Not to mention—so, so hot.”
Joyce smiled. “I’m surprised you let him get away.”
“Yeah.” Buffy’s face fell and she bit her lip. Her mom was not going to take the next part well. “He, er, lives in England. Kinda had to let him get away, you know, for his plane?”
“Oh,” Joyce replied. “Oh dear. You have his number, though, right?”
“Not so much,” Buffy said, and felt a gnawing sensation settle in her stomach. She had been so caught up in the shock of finding out she was pregnant that she hadn’t given a thought to how she was going to contact Spike to tell him. Hadn’t even thought about whether she wanted him to know, not least if it was even possible.
“Address? E-mail?” Joyce prodded.
“Nothing.” Buffy shook her head. “It wasn’t meant to—we both understood that it was just a one time thing. No numbers, no real names, nothing.”
“No real names?”
“I told him I was called Anne,” Buffy replied, blushing slightly. “I didn’t know how things were going to end up when I first met him…”
“If you decide not to, then I’ll support you but, Buffy, you need to find him and tell him.”
Buffy swallowed, hard. “I know.”
***
Present Day
“…and you’ve gotta tell him!” Willow finished, blueberry muffin now shredded to pieces and resembling nothing but crumbs. “’Cause there’s this meet-and-greet brunch next week with the band and Oz is making me go and you know how bad I am at keeping secrets and—”
“Willow!” Buffy said, loudly, cutting her friend off before she started hyperventilating.
The shock of hearing Spike’s name had paralysed her for a few moments, and she had simply stared in shock while Willow had gone into more detail about the Dingoes new manager and how her friend thought that he was the Spike, her Spike, Grace’s father.
“Sorry,” Willow said now. She frowned at the mess she’d made of her muffin and covered it with a napkin, passing a little piece of the cake to Grace before she did so. “But, isn’t this exciting? O-or, kinda scary, I guess. I remember how um, stressy you were back when you couldn’t find him.”
“It’s a little of both,” Buffy admitted, not wanting to let on how much her heart had dipped and soared. “But I need to be sure it’s him before I get my hopes up.”
“It’s him,” Willow said. “I can feel it. Besides, how many bleach-blond Spikes can there be?”
“Still,” Buffy said, wary. She had given up seriously looking for Spike a few months after Grace had been born. Although there had been a few times since that she’d wanted to make the effort again, most notably in the last few months, it had seemed an impossible task.
Now, she found it hard to believe that the Spike Willow was talking about was him, her Spike. What were the chances?
Glancing at her watch, she bit back a curse when she saw the time. “Shoot, I have to go.” She stood and started to gather her things together, trying not to jostle the stroller too much, because Grace had fallen asleep.
“But—”
“I really have to go,” Buffy interrupted. She still had plenty of time to get across town for the appointment, but she didn’t want to talk about Spike anymore. Avoidance was easier.
“Come to the meet-and-greet,” Willow said. “You wouldn’t have to stay. Just come and see if it is him? You need to know.”
“I’ll think about it,” Buffy replied, and Willow must have got the hint because she fell silent, a defeated look on her face.
“Okay.” Willow pouted. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Thanks, Will.” Buffy left the café, mind spinning and her heart clenching.
-TBC-
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Author's Chapter Notes:
All of the other chapters were written before I even started posting this fic - now that I'm writing at the same time as posting, I'm not going to be keeping to my previous posting schedule. I'll just post the chapters as soon as they're ready, and I hope that I'll be able to keep them pretty regular. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! And thank you to Sotia for beta reading. :)
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought by leaving a review. :)