The baby was gone. They’d spent the night trying to be seen at the emergency room and by the time Buffy was actually in front of a doctor it was already over. She was spiking a fever over one hundred and they had to put her on an antibiotic drip. That wouldn’t help the little one, it was already over. The baby was gone, but at least the bundle of tissue wouldn’t drag Buffy along with him. Spike couldn’t help but imagine that the baby that wasn’t would have been a boy; Something Rupert Pratt.
After the needles and tubes, they gave her something to quiet the pain in her abdomen. Spike held Buffy’s hand until she fell asleep. The doctor told him the fever had broken, so Spike took the opportunity to go home and throw the sheets out, put on fresh. No reason she should return to that, Spike thought. He went to the grocery store and picked up a few of Buffy’s favorite foods, a bottle of whiskey and two dozen roses from the little refrigerated trough at the back of the shop. They were perfect blooms, far better than their surroundings. Each petal held the pale, peach blush of a Titian nude.
When he got home, Spike unpacked the crinkling plastic bags and set the bouquet in the empty, tulip-shaped vase on the dining room table, careful to trim the stems and sprinkle the water with the square packet of preservative. He took a shower, scraped at the day’s worth of stubble with a dull razor and regarded his face in the mirror. Gaunt, that was the word to describe his visage. When Buffy ached, so did he, when she couldn’t eat, he couldn’t eat. God, he wished for a cigarette. Maybe it didn’t matter any more if he picked up a pack on the way to the hospital, it was already over. The baby was gone. Spike packed Buffy a bag. On his way out he glanced at the pile of boxes stacked in his spare room. Buffy hadn’t unpacked.
He wondered if he should stick the baby clothes and the bassinet in the basement to spare her the sight of them.
Instead, he shrugged into his jacket and went to collect his girlfriend. He wondered if she still wanted to be his girlfriend or if it was already over now that the baby was gone.
***
Buffy smiled and reached her hands out toward Spike as he came into the hospital room. He noticed there was a transparent tube inserted into the crook of her slender arm and her skin was as white as milk. He walked across the floor to her and crushed Buffy in a hug.
“I’m sorry,” she said into his neck. He wondered how she could still smell so good after all of this, like luscious fruit and dusky flowers. Spike traced her ear with a gentle fingertip.
“It wasn’t your fault, love. Doctor said it wasn’t meant to be,” Spike said.
“That’s not how it feels,” Buffy said.
“None of that now,” he said.
Spike kissed her.
“I love you, Buffy,” he whispered against her skin.
She looked at him with an expression of indescribable gratitude.
Of course he would be the one to say it first, she thought, he was the brave one, ready to bear his heart too soon. Her Spike, heedless into the storm, struggling against the deep water, welcoming her when all she’d wanted was to get away. Falling in love with him had been the most selfish decision of her life, the worst thing she’d ever done but Buffy could never regret it. He was hers, the only person who really ever was hers.
“I love you, too,” she said.
It was a Saturday, a small respite from the misery of that day because at least they were together. Tara told Buffy she could take all the time she needed. Before he discharged her, the doctor told Buffy she could expect bleeding along with some pain for the rest of the week. People handed her things, Spike helped her change into some clean clothes he brought, documents were signed. The sun hurt her eyes as they stepped outside and she needed his arm for support on the way to the car. Though she was weak when she got home, Buffy’s first priority was to unpack the boxes, to show Spike that their relationship had always been about more than the baby. She loved him and she wanted to stay and if threading her book collection in with his was the only way to prove that, Buffy knew she would do it.
To their mutual surprise, it only took a few hours to move Buffy into Spike’s house. The task had seemed so daunting before, but now it was finished and they were spent, lying side by side on the bed.
“Don’t know why we waited so long to do that,” Spike said.
“Right, I totally agree. I don’t know what I was so afraid of,” Buffy said.
“God, I really want a cigarette,” Spike said.
She smiled at him, about to say that secondhand smoke was really bad for the baby, when she remembered. Buffy started to cry.
“I’m sorry love, what is it?”
“The doctor said I’d be like this, hair trigger weepies for the next few weeks,” Buffy said.
“S’alright, love. I’ll start drinking more so I won’t notice,” Spike said. Spike smiled at her, hoping she’d take the bait. Buffy laughed though her cheeks were still wet with tears; at first she was only trying to make him feel better, then she couldn’t stop. Spike held Buffy to his chest as she made sobbing sounds that hovered between agony and mirth, until she fell asleep.
***
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
“The Wasteland,” by T.S. Eliot
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The scene where Buffy and Spike unpack is a direct rip off of a scene from "Spaced." The lines at the end are from "The Wasteland."
Thank you to everyone whose read and commented!
Thank you to everyone whose read and commented!