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Author's Chapter Notes:
I would advise rereading the last couple of chapters to refresh yourself. Better yet, start rereading at chapter 10. That's all I'm saying. *eg*
Happily 22 – The Holy Dark

**********

Spike had spent the last several days talking to Buffy and getting her reacquainted with her son. It was definitely a one step forward and two steps back, sort of process. She would start to open up, he would point it out, and she would shut down. It was maddening to try and get her to feel, when she didn’t want to. Or at least, when she didn’t think she wanted to.

More than once they had dissolved into shouting matches. He’d never had to exercise as much restraint over his tempter as he had the past couple of days. Every time he thought he had managed to breach the walls around Buffy’s heart, she would throw the crumbling pieces at him. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

And now it all appeared to be wearing on Michael. Not that he could blame the tyke. Hell, he’d pretty much been uprooted from his routine, taken away from his home, and forced to room in a seedy little hellhole with a couple of people who were alternately hugging and shouting.

“Why won’t he stop crying?” Buffy shouted in frustration, as Spike continued to bounce the very unhappy child.

Spike’s hand absently rubbed his head, as he tended to do when things were getting out of hand and he couldn’t lash out. As much as he didn’t want to rush Buffy, he really needed to get Michael back to the house.

“He needs to go home, Buffy. We all do.”

That did it. He could see her gearing up to explode.

“We talked about this! I am *not* going back to the house!”

“You can’t have it both ways, Buffy. You won’t go to the house, and Michael can’t stay here, so what the hell am I supposed to do?

“What about Giles? Or Dawn?” Buffy fished for reasons to get Spike to stay.

“What about me?” Spike argued. “Or for that matter, what about you? They aren’t his mother, you are!”

“I can’t be his mother,” Buffy whispered, looking down at the carpet.

“Oh bloody hell, we are *not* going back to this again,” Spike insisted, as he set Michael down on the blanket.

“I didn’t ask to be a mother, Spike! I didn’t ask for any of this!”

“And I did?” Spike shouted. “If memory serves, I didn’t have much choice in the matter! But I gave up most of my life to take care of the one you left behind!”

“I never had a life!” Buffy vehemently protested. “I’m eighteen, Spike, and I never had a life. Never had a childhood. All I ever wanted was to be a normal girl, in a normal family. To be the person I was before everything was ripped away from me.”

“You *can* be, Buffy. Come home…for Michael.”

“Spike, I’m…I’m not good for him.”

“Says who?” Spike demanded.

“Everything I’ve ever read,” Buffy looked up, her eyes begging him to finally see her point. “I’m too young. I’m a walking disaster. I can’t remember what it’s like to have a non-dysfunctional family. I’m a mental basket case. I’m nothing more than a broken little girl trying to push through what’s left of her life. Why can’t you see that?”

“Because that isn’t what you are,” Spike tenderly answered as he walked up to Buffy and took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. “You are not broken. You’re just a bit lost, and I’m doing my best to help you find your way.”

Buffy’s face clearly displayed her doubt, as Spike tried to will her to clear a path through the fog she’d enshrouded herself in.

“Buffy, please come home with me?”

Buffy’s breathing sped up a little, and Spike could see her wavering.

“If I say no?” Buffy quietly asked, drawing a deep sigh from him.

“Then we’re at an impasse.”

“If I go back, everything changes. Between everyone and everything. I was just beginning to think that I like things the way they are now,” Buffy finished rather shyly.

“Buffy, we can’t stay here forever.”

“Then just stay one more night?” Buffy softly pleaded.

Spike leaned his forehead against Buffy’s, feeling his resolve fade. With a final sigh, he nodded his agreement. He would stay tonight.

He knew she would make the same request tomorrow.

After a few moments, Spike broke away and went over and picked up Michael, who had obviously cried himself to sleep during the argument. He carefully changed the tuckered tyke into a sleep shirt, and set him back on the blanket. Having finished the task, he turned back to find Buffy had also changed, and was already crawling into bed.

As he settled himself in bed next to her, Buffy quickly curled herself into his form. Molding her curves to his own, the same way she had done the last several nights. As if nothing had ever been amiss. As if the entire world consisted of nothing more than this tiny little bed.

But it did. In fact, a big part of his world now consisted of the little boy sleeping not too far away. As he watched Michael stir slightly on his makeshift bed, he felt his heart warring with his mind. He had more than just Buffy to think about. He had to do what was best for both Michael and Buffy.

He’d brought her past the immediate crisis, now it was time for her to move on. As long as he stayed here and gave in to her, Buffy would never confront the world she feared. She had to take the next step, and for her to do that… he couldn’t be here.

**********
Buffy walked into the library, dismay turning into surprise and even a little happiness, as she heard Giles talking to Angel. She hadn’t seen Angel in what seemed like forever. It faded all too soon as she caught the end of their grave discussion. She could only stand in stunned shock as she heard Giles pronounce her fate to die at the hands of The Master.

As she considered her fate, an edge of hysteria took over and she found herself unexpectedly laughing, drawing shared looks of concern from Giles and Angel as they followed her out into the main art of the library.

“So that’s it, huh? I remember the drill. One slayer dies, the next one’s called,” Her voice tinted with false cheeriness. “Wonder who she is? Will you train her?” She questioned Giles. “Or will they send someone else?”

“Buffy, I…”

“Does it say how he’s going to kill me?” She hesitantly asked. “Do you think it’ll hurt?”

Angel tried to pull her into his arms, but Buffy quickly backed away, yelling at him not to touch her.

After a moment of composure, she turned back around to face the two men, now finding Giles and Spike staring back at her as her mind continued spilling over with questions. “Were you even going to tell me?”

“I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to…that there was…some way around it,” Giles explained.

“I’ve got a way around it,” Buffy nodded. “I quit!”

“It’s not that simple,” Spike softly chided her.

“I’m making it that simple!” Buffy shouted. “I quit. I resign. I’m fired. You can find someone else to stop The Master from taking over.”

“I’m not sure that anyone else can,” Giles reposted. “All the signs indicate…”

“The signs?” Buffy repeated, incredulous. Consumed with momentary rage, she began picking up scattered books and throwing them at him as she screamed out, “Read me the signs! Tell me my fortune! You’re so useful sitting here with all of your books. You’re *really* a lot of help.”

“No, I don’t suppose I am.”

“I know this is hard…” Spike butt in.

“What do you know about this? You’re never going to die!”

“You think I want anything to happen to you?” Spike bit out his retort. “You think I could stand it? We just gotta figure out a way…”

“I already did,” Buffy insisted. “I quit, remember? Pay attention!”

“Buffy, if The Master rises…” Giles began.

“I don’t care!” Buffy cried, as she ripped over the silver cross necklace that hung around her neck. “I don’t care,” She said a little more calmly as she looked up at her watcher, trying to explain to him what she was feeling. “Giles, I’m eighteen years old. I…I don’t want to die…”

**********

As Buffy emerged from the dream, she was filled with confusion. Usually by now, Spike would have her firmly encased in his comforting arms, shushing her cries, and pushing away her fears. But not this time. She couldn’t even feel him in the bed, so she sat up and searched the room for him. She found him standing next to the small dresser.

He was packing.

“You’re really leaving?” Buffy asked, a tremor entering her voice.

“Told you, Michael needs his home,” He answered, head bowed to his task.

“But, you promised you’d stay…”

“Promised I’d see this through, and I will. I’ll always be here when you need me,” Spike answered, his determined look firmly in place.

“I need you now!” Buffy pleaded, her panic clearly showing. Her only answer was a defeated sigh from him as he continued packing.

“Why?” Buffy begged. “Why now?”

“You,” Spike answered with a sad smile, as he looked up at her. “You need to suss out for yourself what it is you really want. Need to be the one to take the next step in your own life. Me being here now isn’t helping that,” He finished as he tossed the bags over his shoulder. Buffy watched in silence, as Spike bent over the bed and gently picked up the sleeping baby and headed for the door.

“Wait…please…” Buffy desperately called out to Spike as he reached for the doorknob. But he paused for only a moment, before he opened the door. As her heart sank in her stomach, Buffy realized that he wasn’t going to stop this time. Anger and panic took hold of her, and she desperately searched her brain for something to say, something that would hurt him as much as he was hurting her.

“If I do?” Buffy asked hesitantly. “Decide that I can be the mother he deserves?” He paused in the door, and looked back at her, his face shining with hope. And there it was, the reaction she needed. He’d just given her complete control of the situation with that look, and she was going to milk it as much as she dared. “What if I want him back?” Buffy finished in a pointedly cool tone.

Spike took a long hard look at the child sleeping soundly in his arms. Buffy could almost feel the pain radiating from him at her insinuation. After several moments, he breathed out a resigned sigh, then turned and walked out the door, his final words ringing in her ears.

“He’ll be right where you left him.”

**********

She spent the day trying to erase his arguments from her mind. Trying to convince herself that the path she’d chosen was the right one. She was too young and too damaged to be the mother that Michael deserved; to be the person Spike thought she could be.

She’d considered all the things they’d talked about, and she found herself to be more confused now than before. She wanted to be the woman Spike believed she was. But she didn’t see how she could ever become that person. She wanted to start life over, forget everything that had ever happened up until today. But she still wanted to keep some of the memories and feelings with her.

They hadn’t all been bad. Painful maybe, but not really bad. Some were even good, but they had been few, and often too far between. Could she really make a life from the meager scattering of happy memories? Could she make herself the person she wanted to be? Take the love that had once been given to her and return it, without destroying everything and everyone in the process?

That troubling question was the last conscious thought running through her mind as she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

**********

“Buffy!” Joyce alarmed voice broke through the pensive cocoon that Buffy had enveloped herself in as she studied the girl in the beautiful prom dress, staring back at her from the mirror. The normal girl who had a life to look forward to.

“There’s something on the news…Willow!” Her mother urged her.

Of course she’d immediately gone to see her closest friend.

“I’ve seen so much,” Willow said. Still in obvious shock at what she’d witnessed, as she sat upright on her bed, hugging her knees to herself. “I thought I could take anything. But Buffy, this…this was different.”

“It’ll be alright,” The slayer assured Willow.

“I’m trying to think how to say it,” Willow replied, confusion coloring her words, “To explain it so you’ll understand.”

“It doesn’t matter as long as you’re ok,” Buffy insisted.

“I’m not ok,” Willow sadly shook her head. “I knew those guys. I go to that room every day. And when I walked in there…it…it wasn’t our world anymore. They made it theirs, and they had fun,” Her face scrunched in angered disgust. “What’re we gonna do?”

“What we have to,” Buffy told her, a resigned resolve sliding into place as she made her decision. “Promise me you’ll stay in tonight, ok?” It was more command than question.

“Buffy?” Willow called after her.

She turned back from the door, a little surprised as she saw a smile start across Willow’s face.

“I like your dress,” Willow finished.

Buffy had almost forgotten it. The semblance of normality she’d been relishing only a short while ago. She smiled at the complement. “Take care,” was the last thing she said before leaving her friend for the last time and headed straight for the library to weapon up. She knew what she had to do. She wasn’t a normal girl. She was here to make sure that those like Willow had their normal world. To protect them and the one’s she loved.

She was the slayer…the chosen one.

**********

“That was incredibly stupid,” Giles stated the obvious. “Now, in addition to having my anger and Buffy's threat to deal with, you have a plaster wall to repair, and quite possibly a broken hand. Honestly, I’d have thought you would have learned to deal with your frustrations in a more constructive way by now,” He said as he removed the ice pack to inspect Spike’s bruised and bloody knuckles.

“And I’d have thought you’d have learned by now that I…know……”

“Hmm? What is it that you think you know?” Giles asked, looking up at his son’s face, and then turning to see what had drawn Spikes stunned attention.

“Buffy?”

“Hi guys. I’m home.”





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