Listen to Me
Buffy lifted the last plate from the kitchen counter and placed it into the dishwasher as she tried to keep herself balanced with her expanding waistline. Spike had his back to her as he cleaned the vegetable scraps from the island counter with a sly smile on his face. He turned around catching her by the waist, pulling her back towards him. Running his hands along her abdomen as Buffy pulled herself upright, she sighed as Spike encircled their child beneath his hands.
“Won’t be long now, love.” Spike nuzzled her neck with light nips of his teeth.
“Mmm,” Buffy softly acknowledged as she placed both hands over his, “I can’t wait.”
“Neither can I, love. Neither can I.” Spike pulled her closer against him for a few sounds in a loving hug. “Big day tomorrow. You should go to bed and get some rest.”
“Why?” Buffy pouted in disagreement.
”Because.” Spike gently nipped her shoulder.
“Why?” Buffy asked again as she shrugged him away from her body and turned around to face him.
“Because I said so.” Spike leaned over and took her hand within his own. “And because we’re going to have along day at the hospital tomorrow.”
“Spike,” Buffy’s voiced raised an octave higher as she uttered her discord, “I’m registering for the birth, not giving birth.”
“Still, a little more sleep might make…” Spikes attention broke as a sharp, quick knock on the front door stopped him mid sentence. Looking at the kitchen clock, he frowned at the late hour. “Who in their right mind knocks on someone’s door this time of bloody night?”
“Ignore it,” Buffy replied as Spike let her go and marched off in a huff towards the front of the house. “Spike, they’ll go away if we don’t answer.”
Buffy leaned back against the counter as she listened to Spike’s heavy footsteps against the hardwood of the floor. She sighed again as she could only imagine what reception the people that knocked where going to receive from a very annoyed Englishman. In some retrospect, Buffy hoped that it was not Xander, who had not been back since last weekend when he’d made am absolute idiot of himself. Buffy strained to hear who might have been at the front door as she heard it open on its metal hinges. She just heard Spike’s soft “bloody hell” as he found out exactly who was at the front door. Worriedly Buffy walked through the house towards the front door, her mouth fell open as she confronted the couple that stood on the threshold of the house.
Her mother and father.
“Mom,” Buffy whispered in shock at seeing them on her doorstep, “Dad.”
Her parents’ look of shock mirrored that of their daughter, they both stared at her swollen abdomen showing her advancing pregnancy. Her mother’s mouth hung open and her eyes widened at seeing for the first time the obvious state of her daughter’s condition. Her father’s posture stiffened as his glaring gaze moved back and forth from his daughter’s to his son in laws in somewhat anger. Spike looked like he wanted nothing more than to knock the look from his father in law’s face as he felt Buffy shudder against the intent look that her father was giving them.
“Buffy, aren’t you going to invite your mother and myself in?” Buffy’s father asked his daughter.
Buffy flinched at the commanding tone of his voice. “Come in.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Summers,” Spike spoke with his own warning laced intertwined in his tone as he opened the door further so that they could walk into the foyer of the house. “What a pleasant surprise,” he added sarcastically.
“William,” his father in law glared at him with hooded eyes that glazed with distrust and annoyance. “I would be lying if I said that it was pleasant to see you here in my daughter’s house.”
“Our house Dad,” Buffy spoke with a tone fortified with warning. “This house is his and mine.”
“That’s not what the deed says Buffy,” her father retaliated.
“Enough.” Buffy’s mother warned her husband, “Does it really matter Giles?”
“I…”
“I said ‘enough’” Buffy’s mothers pitch became incensed and intensified. “We agreed that we were coming to quietly discuss the situation. Not make their house a war zone.”
“But Joyce…”
“Giles haven’t we put our daughter through enough already,” Joyce spoke quietly and looked away from the younger couple her eyes glazed with tears and guilt. “Please don’t make things impossible even before we’ve walked through the door.”
“Mom,” Buffy took a step forward and taking her mother’s hand drew her across the threshold and into the house. “Come in,” she looked at her father with a hint of distrust and left him standing at the door. Too frightened to say something that she might later regret.
Spike watched as the two women walked past him and into the living room out of his peripheral vision. He looked at the older man with somewhat distain at way the father treated his own child. Never would he ever treat his own child in the same way no matter what the cause. If looks could kill, the man would not need a paramedic to revive him because there’d be nothing left to try and resuscitate.
“You get one warning, Mr. Summers. One warning only,” Spike spoke quietly as not to alert the women and to shelter Buffy from any further harm. “You do anything, and I mean anything to hurt her anymore than you have and I’ll rip your balls out and shove ‘em down your throat.”
“William, I am not here to do such a thing,” he replied to the threat from his son in law.
“Make sure that you don’t. You and your wife have made her suffer enough from not only your own hands but my ex as well.”
“You make us sounds like monsters, William.” Giles Summers almost looked like he was choking on his own words. “I doubt that we weren’t the only ones to cause my daughter… no both my daughters’ grief.”
“Right,” Spike’s mouth tightened as he gashed his teeth together pulling the skin on his face tight. “I admit that Buffy and I haven’t had an easy time at first. I never gave Lily any grief. You’d better get one thing straight it was Lily that was fucking around on me, not the other way round.”
“That’s what you say,” Giles pulled himself upright straightening his back as he unsuccessfully attempted to intimidate Spike.
“That’s what I say,” Spike spoke stiffly towards the other man.
“We will just have to see about that young man.”
“Spike?” Buffy’s voice interrupted the attempts of the men to out manoeuvre each other. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothin’ love,” Spike turned around with a soft smile of reassurance on his face. “Just making chitchat with your old man.”
“Yes my dear, just man talk,” Giles tried to make excuses.
“Just making sure that we understand each other,” Spike moved away from the door leaving the older man on the doorstep. “You’d better come in before I change my mind.”
“Thank you,” Giles spoke softly.
Spike turned around with a warning look covering his facial features, “Don’t thank me yet.”
Spike turned and made his way towards the two women that now sat on the sofa as they went back to their own quiet conversation. Buffy stop speaking as she noticed Spike taking a seat in the sofa that stood elongated to the right of the one she sat on with her mother. Her father sat down reluctantly next to his son in law, his body language stiff and unremitting as the tension in the room began to gather tempo. Joyce looked from her daughter to her husband, wanting to throttle him for the anger that seemed to pour out of him towards the young man seated next to him.
“I think that the first thing that I should say to both of you,” Joyce’s voice was quiet and shaking “Is that I’m sorry for all the heartache that I and your father have put you through. I know that it isn’t enough to just hear the words but I mean it.” She took her daughter’s hand in her own, “I’m sorry that I didn’t speak to you that day on the phone. I was still in shock from what Lily had said that you’d done.”
“Supposedly done,” Buffy voice was filled with sad remembrance. “You never even tried to listen to what I had to say.”
“I know,” Joyce’s eyes began to glisten with tears, “and for that I am truly sorry and ashamed of myself.”
“Your mother was just too upset to speak,” Giles interjected. “As far as we were concerned you’d stolen your sister’s husband and were pregnant to boot. It’s reasonable to assume that your mother was too upset to speak to you, Buffy.”
“What about how Buffy felt?” Spike spat towards his father in law as the situation surrounding all of them began to escalate quickly into treacherous waters. This wasn’t how he wanted things to go and not so devastating quickly as the Summers had only just walked in the door. “What about the pain it caused her? The misery that you inflicted onto your daughter?”
“Spike, I cannot imagine what pain my daughter went through,” Joyce’s tears finally fell upon her face. “Because of what we did. We should have listened to her side of the story.”
“Would you have believed me?” Buffy quietly asked her parents. “At least tell me the truth. I deserve that if anything.”
“I don’t know,” Joyce whispered, “Lily was very convincing about her story.”
“Lying scheming bitch,” Spike spoke under his breath yet not quite enough that his father in law didn’t hear it.
“And you are such the innocent man?” Giles got to his feet. “You marry one of my daughters and then you ‘shack up’ with my other daughter.”
“Dad!” Buffy jumped out of her seat as Spike stood up looking like he was about to take the head off her father. “Spike, stop it!”
“Yes I did marry your daughter.” Spike spoke his truth. “And, I married the wrong daughter.”
“Giles,” Joyce, shaking got to her feet and walked to her husband talking his hand in her own walked Giles back to where he’d gotten up. “Sit down.”
“We don’t know what happened between then and how much is true we won’t know unless we calmly talk about it.” Joyce spoke with a hushed tone.
“You should have been told all of the truth by Lily,” Spike sat back down next to a very quiet Buffy. “She promised to tell you everything. Not that her promise means anything.”
“Lily only told us the basics,” Joyce whispered. “That she’d lied about you, Buffy and the baby.”
“She should have told you all of it,” Spike frustrated ran his hand along his head and sighed. “All of the bloody truth.”
“Why would she?” Buffy quietly commented.
“Because I paid her enough to tell your folks the truth,” Spike spat out.
“Paid her?” Giles tried to understand what Spike actually meant and he implied about Lily. “What are you talking about?”
“Our divorce settlement,” Spike looked at his father in law, “Lily wanted nearly everything that I owned so that we can divorce because she knows how much I want the damn thing.”
“She’s entitled to something, Spike.” Joyce looked pleadingly at her son in law. “Despite everything.”
“Lily didn’t deserve everything that I and my family have worked for because she decided that I wasn’t worth it and buggered off with another man,” Spike spat out with distaste.
The sharp intake of horror by Buffy’s mother was overshadowed by Giles’s fist slamming down onto the sofa arm, both of them at odds with the reluctant truth. What they both perceived to believe as the loathsome truth as they both understood it, Joyce felt like her nerves were being grated over a gravel road jarring them into the reality that seemed to have made itself apparent by Spike’s mishandling of the truth. Giles Summer, head began to hammer with throbbing pain as he tried to process the alligations that William had laid against his eldest daughter. He closed his eyes to avoid the blue eyes that bore into his own with contention and disgust laid against his precious Lily.
“Mom…what did Lily say exactly?” Buffy tried to compose herself as she spoke to her mother. “I want you to repeat it down to every last sentence, word and syllable.”
“She just said that she’d left William because there was nothing left between them anymore,” Joyce looked away to the floor as she rung her hands together. “That William was bored with her and didn’t…you know…want her anymore,” her mothers face became redder as she continued. “He was far more interested in you instead of his own wife…that he’d become obsessed with you and the baby.”
“Obsessed?” Buffy questioned her mother’s story, “With me?”
“Yes, that you seemed to occupy every waking moment that William had and that he wasn’t interested in her anymore,” Joyce quickly looked at her daughter to see what kind of reaction Buffy had with what she’d just said. Not seeing any response Joyce continued with what she understood as the labyrinth of would be truths from Lily. “That you’d secretly agreed to get pregnant by him so that he could have and I’m using her exact words ‘his baby that I just couldn’t give him so that you could steal him away from me’.”
“That’s not true,” Buffy’s eyes welded with tears at the words that had erupted from her lying sister’s mouth that had vilified her to their mother.
“You’re pregnant Buffy,” Giles took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Look like you could deliver any minute.”
“She changes her story to suit herself,” Spike shook his head as he become more confused trying to keep up the depth of the lies and deceit that his wife had plunged herself and them into. The truth had been twisted, unravelled and twisted again to suit Lily’s pervert truth in pursuing his money and causing as much destruction as she could between the fragments of the lives she left behind in her wake.
“You can’t deny that you only broke up a few months ago and Buffy looks more than a few months pregnant?” Joyce spoke quietly. “How else could she have become pregnant William if you weren’t sleeping with Buffy?”
“I was inseminated Mom,” Buffy whispered. “I had a piece of plastic inserted inside my womb delivering his seaman, not his dick.”
“Buffy!” Her father fiercely reacted at her choice of words.
“I don’t understand?” Joyce looked bewildered at her daughter’s words. “It’s to confusing.”
“I…I went to the doctors office and he…umm…he inseminated me,” Buffy floundered on her words. “I wanted to have…give Spike…”
“You wanted a baby so you got your sister’s husband to be the donor?” Giles spat out the distasteful accusation at his daughter. “If you where that desperate for a baby why couldn’t you find yourself a descent man and settle down?”
“It wasn’t like that!” Buffy got up and stood in front of her father with her voice raised in explicit anger and revulsion. “You aren’t listening to a word I have to say! Not a fucking single syllable that has come out of my mouth.”
“Buffy,” Joyce put her arm around her daughter trying to calm her down and offer her some degree of comfort. “Please sweetheart, it’s not good to get yourself all worked up in your state,” looking at her husband she managed to pull her distressed daughter back to the sofa. “Please Giles, don’t be so pigheaded. You’re putting to much strain on Buffy who is carrying our grandchild.”
“Would someone please explain this bloody mess to me then?” Giles looked at Spike with daggers in his gaze. “All I want is the truth.”
“Fine then,” Spike turned and grabbed his father in laws tie, “I’ll explain it to you in simple terms because that all you seem good at bloody understanding.” Pulling on the tie so that the older man’s face was as close as Spike wanted him to his own he continued. “Buffy saw how much I wanted a child with Lily and Lily’s fertility treatment wasn’t working at all…”
“Fertility?” Joyce’s mouth dropped in surprise, “She never said anything to me.”
“Because Lily said that she didn’t want to worry you,” Spike looked sympathetically at his mother in law. He’d always liked Joyce as she always wore her heart on her sleeve and had become the mother to him that he’d always wanted. Joyce had shown him more love and concern than his own mother had or could have, for that alone he would try to soften the truth as much as he could. “About her not being able to naturally conceive the baby we…I thought we both wanted.”
“She never said a word or even hinted…nothing,” Joyce looked devastated at Lily’s inability to confide the truth to her own mother. “I never knew.”
“You never were meant to,” Spike’s tone softened with regret vaguely laced in his words. “Finally after god knows how many attempts to get Lily pregnant, Buffy offered to be our surrogate. To give us the baby Lily couldn’t have despite everything we did and god knows we tried.”
“Oh my god,” Joyce slumped herself against the sofa in shock. “You agreed to be a surrogate?”
“Yes Mom,” Buffy swallowed deeply. “Just to be their surrogate so that they could have their baby and live happily ever after. All I wanted was to help them have a baby.”
“Ironically the day that Buffy found out that she was pregnant with our baby was the day that Lily left me,” Spike let out a sigh as the memory of that day burned through his mind. “All of her things were gone and all she left behind was a letter and her wedding band.”
“You said ‘our baby’” Giles quietly asked, “Who’s the biological mother?”
“I am,” Buffy answered her father with her head held high, “like I said they inseminated me with his sperm so it was my egg that was fertilised.”
“And you were just going to hand the baby over to them once it had been born?” her father asked.
“Yes,” Buffy closed her eyes as she answered, “That was the plan.”
“Why not just give the baby over to William when it was born?” Giles asked his daughter exasperatedly. “Why…why all of this? Why get involved with him?”
“Because he is baby’s father and Spike deserves to be involved with his child,” Buffy answered. “And because…” her silence was deafening to the truth that she hesitated to speak but Spike couldn’t help himself but fill her parents in what they truly felt for each other.
“Because I love her,” Spike spoke for her. “Just like Buffy loves me.”
“You love her,” Giles cynical laughter filled the room. “Do you fall in love as quickly as you fall out of it?”
“That’s low, even for you Dad,” Buffy spoke between gritted teeth.
“Is it?”
“Enough,” Spike let his father in law go by the tie and continued with what he was saying. “Buffy and I are in love with each other and with the baby on the way. That’s the simplistic truth that you both have to accept that I’m with you daughter for the long haul and like I told my folks…you either accept us the way things are or not at all.”
“The way things are?” Giles looked at Buffy accusingly, “Are you sleeping with him?”
“That’s none of your business,” Buffy told her father quietly.
“So you are?” Giles now looked angrily at Spike. “Couldn’t keep your mitts off her?”
“Like she said it’s none of your business whether she and I share the same bed or not,” Spike spat back at him.
“Buffy, is that how you want it to be between you and your parents?” Giles questioned his daughter. “We have to accept the fact that you’re pregnant with this man’s child and you’re having a sexual relationship with him no matter what you’re mother and I think?”
“Yes you do, because Spike has done the same for me with his family. It’s all three of us or nothing.”
“Buffy,” Joyce’s voice crackled with emotion. “Please.”
“No Mom,” Buffy looked at her mother with her worry and distress written all over her face. “Spike’s parents are getting the same thing as you. All three of us or nothing and they have accepted the facts as they are.”
“So much has happened Buffy. I don’t know what to think or feel,’ Joyce tried to keep control over her crumbling emotions. “I love both you and your sister and despite what horrible things she you’ve accused her of. I just can’t forget she’s my daughter.”
“I’m not Mom,” Buffy spoke quietly. “I’m not saying to choose between me and Lily. All I ask is that you try and understand what I’m going through.” She looked over to Spike as she continued. “Just to accept my decision about mine and my baby’s life. Be happy for me and your grandchild.”
“It’s just so much information to take in at once,” Joyce looked at her husband with hope in her eyes that he would stand by her next words to their daughter. “I think that your father and I need to go home and take all of this in. Let the dust settle and digest what you’ve said. Try to make sense of this whole mess.”
“Yes,” Giles looked directly into his fidgeting hands, “Joyce and I need to talk about what you’ve said and the ultimatum that you’ve given us.”
“There is no ultimatum, Mr Summers,” Spike spoke. “We just want you to accept the situation for what it is. You don’t have to choose between your daughters. All Buffy’s saying is that you have the choice whether you participate in our family’s life and in doing that your grandchild’s.”
“I see,” Giles swallowed hard. “It still recks of an ultimatum to me.”
“Giles, enough,” Joyce warned her husband. “I think that enough hurtful words have been said. I think that it’s time that we went.”
“Yes my dear,” Giles stood up and went to his wife holding out his hand to help her to her feet. “I think that your mother is right.”
“So do I,” Spike looked grimly at his father in law. “Buffy needs to rest.”
“Please don’t take anything I said the wrong way, Mom,” Buffy got up as her mother stood up and turned to hug her. “I love you and Dad.”
“I know, dear. I know,” Joyce returned to gentle hug with one of her own. “I’ll call you soon.”
“Please do, Mom,” Buffy let her go and embraced her father. “Please don’t be angry, Dad. I love you both, but I also love William and our baby.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Giles brow furrowed together at all the jumbled thoughts and memories came flooding together like the pieces of a puzzle. Truth recked from the distasteful taste of reality in his mouth emanating from the lies and half-truths that his other daughter had spewed out about Buffy. “I know that there are some facts that can’t be dismissed about Lily but it’s just too hard to imagine that one sibling would do that to another. I don’t know…I just don’t know.”
“Then can I suggest that you go home and think about it before we take this any further.” He watched as Giles nodded his head in silent agreement whilst he contemplated his own thoughts and words to his daughter. Spike moved away from her parents and moved towards the front door. “I’ll see you both out.”
Joyce turned back to her daughter and sighed, “Don’t you ever think that I or your father don’t love you. It’s just been to…” Her lose of words played upon her face as she was too frightened to say the wrong thing and if anything to say anything at all. The relationship between child and parent was just too fragile now to risk damaging it any further.
“I know Mom. I know,” Buffy tried to smile but all that showed was a strained thin lip between her cheeks. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Night sweetheart,” Joyce said her farewells as she walked through the front door to the outside.
“Buffy,” Giles looked sombre in the revelation of truths that had taken place between all of them tonight. “I’m sorry…so sorry that we…what I’ve put you through. We didn’t know but you have to see it from our perspective. It’s a shock to learn that not only how the baby was conceived but you’re also sleeping with this…this man.”
“Dad, William’s been here for me from day one no matter what you’re thinking at the moment. He’s been here for me and the baby. I love him so much that it hurts my insides and the idea that not being close to William makes me shudder.” Buffy spoke confidently drawing from her confidence and love for the man that stood before her. “But I also need you and Mom to be here for me too. Please Dad, try to understand.”
“I’ll try, Buffy,” Giles exhaled, “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask,” Buffy pleaded with her father.
“I’d better be going before you’re mother starts to worry where I am,” Giles nodded his head in farewell and walked out the door.
“Bloody hell,” Spike closed the door with a soft thud and twisted the lock.
“You can say that again.” Buffy walked back to the sofa and sat back down.
“Went well don’t you think?” Spike walked back to her and sat next to her. “Think they’ll come around, love?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“They’ll see the truth, love.” Spike swung his arm around her in an embrace. “If not we’ll make them see it so it’s as plain to them as the time of day.”
“Lily really did a number on them,” Buffy sighed.
“Yeap,” Spike played with a lock of her hair. “Couldn’t even tell them the whole bloody truth. Not to worry, love.”
“I know,” Buffy smiled in vain hope of trying to appear vaguely happy. “At least they finally got to hear what I had to say.”
“The truth, love,” Spike leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. “If they don’t want to believe the truth than that’s their problem, ‘aint it?”
“I suppose,” Buffy struggled to suppress the yawn that came from her now tired body. She was tired and exhausted from all the emotional conflict that had been going on inside of her during her parents visit. “I’m tired.”
“I know, love. Go to bed I’ll be up soon.”
“No,” Buffy pouted at him. “I’m going to my bed and you can have the spare.”
“What! No way!” Spike pulled back from her in shock. “You and I are going to share the same bed, thank you. I’m not going to be kick out of our bed because they disapprove.”
“But…”
“No butts about it.”
“I’m kidding as if I’d let you ever sleep alone with out me,” Buffy pocked him in the ribs. “Had you going there didn’t I?”
“Right,” Spike looked menacingly disparaged at her. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“What?” Buffy looked innocently at him. “What?”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N in rereading this fic I found a minor plot error….Buffy’s father is not her stepfather as indicated in chapter 14. He is her biological father! My bad…sorry about any confusion. Hopefully I can rectify this where I can if not….please accept my apologies.
Thanks to Kar and Meli for their beta reading. Thanks gals!
Thanks to Kar and Meli for their beta reading. Thanks gals!