It was nine in the morning, the sun was shining brightly, the birds were chirping happily, and Buffy Summers sat crumpled in the dark on the bathroom floor, sobbing. The curtains were shut tight. The dirty, white-tiled ground felt ice cold on her thighs and butt. Her hair was disheveled and she was wearing nothing but a tank top and her underwear. Her favorite pair of blue overalls--known as the “overalls of pain” to her little sister Dawn--lay discarded on the other side of the room. She had taken them off to take the test. She didn’t want to get them wet.

It can’t be true. It just can’t be true.

Yet, instinctively, she knew it was. She was pregnant. PREGNANT. Scattered on the floor near the sink were 12 pregnancy tests--all reading positive. There were blue sticks, plus signs, and every other conceivable determinant of what she wanted to deny. The proof was right there, mere feet from where she was sitting. She couldn’t ignore it now. The truth screamed at her. All she wanted was silence.

She tried to ignore the morning sickness and all of the other changes her body had been going through for the last few weeks. When she stepped into that drug store to buy a pregnancy test she tried to convince herself she would be remiss not to cover all of her bases. A good slayer was a prepared slayer. Hadn’t her former watcher Rupert Giles, taught her that years ago?

If Giles had stayed here instead of running away to England this wouldn’t be happening, Buffy thought bitterly. No, I can‘t blame him. I’ve felt my lust growing since that first year we met. When he moved to Sunnydale with Drusilla. Giles leaving me alone with no one to turn to but my undead stalker just sped up the inevitable. He was the only vampire that ever made me shiver in delight, tingles coursing down my spine every time he entered the room. Angel just made my heart feel heavy whenever he was near. And in the end he left me too.

Once she was standing in front of the isle that held the pregnancy tests she couldn’t make up her mind about what kind to get. She methodically picked up each one and read the package carefully before putting it back. As she had feared, each one had claimed to be the fastest and the most reliable. Not wanting to spend another second contemplating which one was the best, she decided to buy them all.

As she made her way to the check-out area, having tried her best to maneuver through the isles with a multitude of tiny boxes nearly falling out of her arms with each step, she didn’t care that the jerk behind the cash register had whistled in a brash, almost chauvinist way and given her a thorough once over. You didn’t need telepathy to know what he was thinking. It was somewhere between being happy it wasn’t his girlfriend even though she knew he would sleep with her in a heartbeat if given the chance (dream on, loser), feeling sorry for the poor bloke who just got saddled with the responsibility of fatherhood, and trying his hardest to picture an attractive little blond with stretch marks and a protruding belly.

“Mr. Harris threw up in my purse.”

Buffy had on a wan smile as she remembered a conversation she had with Willow a few days ago. She had had that pink purse since her senior year of high school, when she was going through her Jackie O phase and needed accessories to complete most of her outfits. Had she really told Willow that Xander’s father had ruined it during one of his drunken episodes? Yes, she had. She had even tried to convince herself that it was the truth. She needed to blame someone to stay sane. How could she explain getting uncontrollably sick at the rehearsal dinner? She had never just thrown up in public before. Unless you count that time she had gotten drunk with Spike and threw up in the bushes.

Spike.

“He’s a vampire”, she said aloud. “It can’t be his.”

And yet as much as she knew prior to taking the tests that she was pregnant, so too did she know that Spike was the father. He had been the only man she had slept with since Riley.

And I haven’t been with Riley since that week over a year ago when he left to South America to rejoin the Initiative or whatever they called themselves these days.

Her mind wandered back to the bleached blond vampire. He had been the one to tell her--show her, actually--about the nocturnal activities her former boyfriend had been doing behind her back. At the time she had been furious at Spike, she had believed that he had shown her to hurt her. She had misjudged him so much these last few years. Somehow the soulless demon had turned out to be the most trustworthy…What was he to her? Boyfriend? Lover? Significant other? Friend with benefits? She had been having wild and passionate sex with someone she could not even describe in relation with herself.

It doesn’t matter anymore, she thought. I broke up with him. Whatever we were to each other, its over now.

And yet she knew it wasn’t. She didn’t need facts to tell her what she knew in her heart to be true, Spike was the father of the child growing inside her right now. They were connected for life.

Buffy wiped away her tears with one hand and got up off the floor. She glanced at her appearance in the mirror above the sink. Her eyes were red and blotchy and her skin had a glossy look to it. Throwing up for weeks will do that for you.

“You glow.”

Spike had sensed a difference in her but had contributed it to the happiness she felt for her friends. She hadn’t wanted to ruin the moment by telling him what she knew. Instead she had made some joke about the bridesmaid dress being radioactive. He had laughed. She loved his laugh. He was such a funny person. Funnier even than Xander.

I need to concentrate. No time for nostalgia.

She walked downstairs to the deserted kitchen (Willow and Dawn were both at school), picked up the cordless phone, and dialed the hospital.

“Sunnydale Hospital, how may I help you?”, a woman asked brightly. Buffy paused. “Hello?”

“Hi, umm…I…how do you, how do you arrange an appointment with a doctor?”, Buffy asked.

“And what is this regarding, ma’am?”

Oh, god. “I need to know if I’m, well I think I am, I know I am”, Buffy blurted out. “I took the tests but I should still get a professional opinion. Shouldn’t I?”

“Ma’am, what is this regarding?”

“I want to know if I’m pregnant!” There, it was out. She had told someone. She had said it out loud.

Buffy mentally kicked herself for sounding so nervous.

I’ve been killing demons since I was fifteen. I’ve stopped the world from ending on more than several occasions. I’ve died twice. Why can’t I make a damn doctor’s appointment without sounding like I’m five years old? I need my mother, she thought sadly. If only I could talk to her. If only…

A few minutes later when she got off the line, she had an appointment for 12:30 the following day. She was surprised they were able to squeeze her in so soon. Buffy exhaled.

Tomorrow. What will I do until then?

She glanced at the clock. It was only 9: 15.

“Mommy Mommy!”

Buffy took a fleeting look in the direction of the high-pitched, squeaking voice. A five year old child--a little girl with pigtails wearing a Pocahontas t-shirt with blue jeans--had just hopped off of the jungle gym and was running towards a woman cradling a baby. A man stood next to her holding a digital camcorder that covered one of his eyes. He had it panned on the child, smiling warmly as she approached. The woman placed the baby gently in its carriage.

“Did you see? Did you see?”, she asked excitedly. “I climbed all the way to the top.”

“I got it all right here, honey”, the father said, turning the camera off.

“We’re very proud of you, sweetie”, the mother added. “I knew you could do it.”

The girl beamed proudly.

“I think you deserve a treat”, the man said. “How about ice cream?”

The girl made a sound that Buffy assumed was five year old for “yes, please.”

“If its okay with your mother, that is”

The father and the little girl looked at the mother, expectantly.

“Oh, alright”, she said, smiling as her daughter started to jump up and down, enthusiastically.

Buffy stood up from where she had been sitting on the park bench and strolled across the grassy field. She pulled her sweater across her chest even though the temperature was nice and warm. She scanned the area intently. Children of all ages were playing happily as their parents and assorted care givers talked in huddled corners about reality television shows and who had had the latest affair. Buffy tried hard to picture herself among them. She tried to imagine one of those tiny children as her own.

It is too hard to even remember what I was like as a child. So much has happened. Too much. How do these people pretend to be happy when they are around their kids? Does having a child take away some of the pain? Maybe they were happy to begin with.

This is too much. I can’t.

The slayer walked slowly away from the park and the children and the carefree happiness she knew she would never have again. It took her only ten minutes to arrive back home on Revello Drive.

I think I will go back there tomorrow. I just need some sleep now.

Buffy pulled the covers up over her head and went to sleep. And dreamed of Spike.

Buffy sat impatiently in the waiting room. She had made the mistake of showing up 20 minutes early. Rummaging through the large stack of outdated magazines, she checked her watch every half minute.

The first time I am early for something and they make me wait. I have saved these doctors from a lot of work over the years. They would be swimming in vamp attacks and demon mutilations if not for my nightly patrols. When they are able to go home on time and kiss their spouses and play with their kids its because of me. And if they knew that I’m sure they would care. But they don’t. And never will.

Buffy picked up a magazine with a headline that read: Tom and Nicole are calling it quits!

Amy would love these. A great way to catch up on all the celebrity gossip of the last three years. Of course, that former rat turned magic junkie is far more interested in spending time at Rack’s. How did she go from baking cookies with her dad to the walking mess she is now? I could ask the same question about Willow. Old Reliable, getting Dawn into a car accident.

At least my descent into badness only got Spike hurt, she thought, remembering the job she had done on his face in front of the police station. It was really decent of him to lie about how he had gotten injured. How would I have explained away pummeling him senseless? How can I explain anything I’ve been doing with him these last few months?

The receptionist whom Buffy had spoken to on the telephone was sitting behind the circulation desk, answering calls while simultaneously filing her nails. Buffy was impressed at her ability to multi-task. Lately, she had been having trouble concentrating on anything.

Five minutes later, as the slayer noticed that her appointment was supposed to have started already, she felt only contempt for the annoyingly bubbly woman. Every time Buffy inquired about what was taking so long, the lady gave her a rehearsed line about patience being a virtue.

Buffy willed the doctor to finish whatever he was doing and come to her aid. She knew it was wrong. The physical condition she had gotten herself into was not an emergency. At least not a dire one. There were probably people dying at this very moment--some from attacks from various creatures of evil--and she felt as if she should chastise herself for wanting to monopolize the doctor’s time with confirmations of her pregnancy. As well as feeling ashamed that she didn’t feel guilty with the knowledge that she would be forgoing patrol in a few months. She used to feel pride at being able to help people, save lives. Her capacity to care for total strangers had been regarded as one of her greatest traits. She hated herself for feeling empty.

“My emotions give me power. They’re total assets.”

“I touch the fire and it freezes me. I look into it and its black. Why can’t I feel? My skin should crack and peel. I want the fire back.”

Is it natural to feel so void? Is this what I’m going to pass onto my child? Apathy for the human race.

“The only time I feel anything is when….”

Suddenly, a balding, middle-aged man with a severe laceration across his chest was wheeled past her on a gurney. As she watched two female paramedics hand him over to the resident physicians, she remembered all of the times she had been in this very same hospital, for her own injuries as well as for those of her loved ones. She tried hard not to think about her mother’s death. The morgue.

“Buffy Summers. The doctor will see you now.”

She leaped out of her seat. It took her roughly three steps to reach the circulation desk where a man in a white jacket waited with a clipboard. She followed him as he ushered her into an empty hospital room. He handed her a hospital gown and instructed her to get changed behind a partition. He had her sit down on what appeared to be a bed with white paper pulled across it. She felt like she was going to be bound and sold to be eaten alive.

Why did they make me watch that video at the Double meat Palace? Why on earth would you need to show your prospective employees footage of a cow and a chicken being butchered, minced, and sautéed? The restaurant is still trying to pass that place off as a carnivore’s wet dream when in actuality it is mainly soy with a small dash of dead animal for seasoning. After seeing that video I would’ve given up meat entirely if not for that smell. Ingesting that stuff has done wonders for slaying though, it is a great vampire repellent.

“God slayer, is that you?”

“I’ve been working.”

“Where, the slaughterhouse?”

“Double meat Palace.”

“….If you’ve been eating there I’m not so sure I want to bite you.”

When vampires are refusing to sink their teeth into you because of how putrid you stink then you know something needs to change. Even Riley had noticed the smell. How can vegetarians stand tofu? It tastes tolerable but the odor is revolting. Well, there is always fruit and vegetables. And--

What am I doing? I am here to find out if my world has changed forever. Stop thinking about food.

“So Mrs. Summers”, he asked politely. “How are you feeling today?”

He was clueless how much he had just hurt her. In her mind, the name Mrs. Summers would always refer to her mom.

“Mrs. Summers?”

“It’s Buffy.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name. It’s Buffy.”

“I apologize. Many of my patients prefer it when I address them properly.”

“Its Buffy”, she repeated emphatically.

“So you are here to find out if you are expecting, is that correct?”

“Yes, and I’m not married.”

He gave her a quizzical look.

“Just thought that I’d clarify. I’m a single mom”

“Do you have any reason to suggest you might be with child?”

Buffy gave him a dirty look. Would I be here if I didn’t have reason to think I was “with child”? And who says phrases like that anymore? Say pregnant. Knocked up. It is 2002 not 1960.

“Well, for starters all of the home pregnancy tests were positive.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Well, I don’t get sick that often and lately I’ve been vomiting a lot. But mostly, I guess you could say woman’s intuition.”

“Well, I believe in science. So if you’ll please follow me over here....”