~~~Chapter Three~~~
~~The Facts Of Life~~
Buffy shuddered as she heard the voice come from the shadows, and if her day had not been as bad as it had, it was only about to get worse. She could feel her stomach churn in dread at her visitor, it was obviously the same person that had demanded entry a few minutes earlier. Behind her stood what could destroy any decisions about what she was going to do about the baby. She’d known that she would have to include Spike in any decision making, but she just didn’t want to think about it tonight, the tough decision had been made about not terminating the pregnancy. The implications that it may have on her life, and she just didn’t want to think anymore, she wanted just feel the new life that lay beneath her hand.
“Don’t you know how to knock Spike?” Buffy asked the man behind her.
“Tried that one, and got no where fast.”
“Must have been a reason, why I didn’t answer the door. Like maybe I wasn’t home!” Buffy tried to contend her anger.
“I find your reasoning immaterial at the moment Buffy,” Spike voice hardened with every word, “We need to talk.”
“Stating the obvious Spike, and don’t speak to me like a criminal that I’m not. This isn’t the office, and I am family remember?”
“How could I forget just how much family you are!” Spike snidely replied to her comments.
“Then please remember you are in my house, not the court room!”
“No, I’m just in the house of my sister-in-laws, who just happens to be carrying my child, and whose sister has just done a bunk back home!” Spike took a swipe at Buffy.
“Her choices not mine!” Buffy took the ammunition that she could and ran with it, “Did you give her reason to run?”
“What?”
“I said did you give her a reason to run?” Buffy knew deep down that he would never have done anything to Lily, but she felt so raw with emotions that she would do anything to protect herself and the baby. Deep down she knew that he still held most of the cards, and he would either hold his hand close to his body, or show his deck.
“How could you even think that?” Spike spat the venom back at her, “She’s my wife for god’s sake! We are meant to be a…...,” He couldn’t get the words out as he chocked on them.
“A what Spike? You are meant to be a family. Is that what you’re saying?” Buffy moved her body around to finally face him, “Because from what I could tell from Lily’s letter, you guys are anything but!” she looked at the anger and devastation that sat on his face.
Spike moved around the sofa, and sat down into one of the vacant seats, his head bowed down in defeat. His hand resting against his scalp as he ran his fingers through his hair, after sometime he slowly raised his head, as she saw a single tear run down his face, the atmosphere between the two dissolved, and melted into the void that surrounded them. Both had much to loose and gain, and they both knew it, but had to this point refused to acknowledge it.
“Why Buffy? Why has Lily done it?” Spike broke the icy quietness between them, “What did or didn’t I do?”
“I don’t know Spike. I probably know no more than you!”
“You must! Your sister’s, don’t sisters tell each other everything!” Spike demanded from her.
“Not everything.”
‘But you must know something, my god you guys are close!”
“Obviously not as much as you think,” Buffy went over to where her letter from Lily lay, she just didn’t have the inner strength to go ten rounds with Spike, and she thought it would just end this integration. Taking it in her hand, she walked over to Spike and handed it over to him, “Read it! It will make it clear I know as much as you!”
With some reluctance, Spike took the letter from her, and read what Lily had written to her sister. She could see the flutter of emotions run over his face, as he absorbed what she had written, she watched as he read it over, and over. She tried to contemplate what was going over in his mind, he looked so lost in his thoughts, and with the most obvious she guessed being, why? Even that was something that she couldn’t fathom, but from somewhere deep down in her sub-consciousness she could feel the trepidation built up in her spinal cord, making her muscles contract in retaliation and fear. She immediately shut her mind to the thoughts that began to form in her mind, she lightly shuddered all those thoughts from her brain. This was not the time or place to air her concerns. The baby was most important thing for Buffy, at this point and time, it came first and Spike would just have to live with it.
“Lily, as you can see didn’t say why, even to me, why she left. It really says nothing,” Buffy spoke quietly to him.
“It mostly says what she wrote to me, except one important thing,” Spike handed the letter back to her, “She tells you to ‘take care of it’.”
“I know.”
“But your not are you?” Spike spoke of his deepest fear in this whole matter.
Buffy sat there silent in reflection in what she was going to say to him, she supposed that honesty was the most appropriate thing here, “No.”
“Thank god!” Spike looked as if some weight in this mess, had been removed from his shoulders.
“I couldn’t do it, even if I tried Spike. It’s part of me. I just cannot get rid of it like some inconvenience just because you two cannot keep it together!”
“Part of you!”
“Yes part of me! Remember just whose eggs these are!” Buffy was incensed as she lashed out at him, she was protecting what she now considered hers. If her sister didn’t want the baby, then she would take responsibility for the life inside of her, and be dammed the consequences.
“And I had no part in it! Just remember who makes up the other half of the equation here!’
“How could I forget!”
“You also seem to forget something else Buffy!” Spike’s voice filled with poison, as he felt himself get caught up in the heated emotions that flew around the room, “Our contract!”
Buffy fled past him and ran up the stairs to the second floor, she threw open the door that lead to her study, and pulled open a draw on her desk, pulling out the document. She had heard the heavy steps that followed her in pursuit, behind her as she had departed the living room. Turning around with the papers in her hand, she held them in front of her, as she watched him stand at the doorway holding onto the archway, his hands white with the pressure he applied to it. With a demented grin on her face, she took the papers between her hands and tore the papers in front of him, in two and then tearing them again. She let them flutter to the floor, pooling around her feet where she stood.
“What contract Spike! The rules just changed!”
“You think that you can just tear up a contract! You seem to forget you signed it, and you signed it knowing that the baby would come to me! You gave up all parental rights! It’s my baby Buffy, not yours!” Spike spoke so harshly and cruelly, that it finally destroyed any fragile emotions that Buffy could use to defend herself against him.
Silently he watched Buffy slide down onto her knees, as the tears founded in fear fell down her cheeks, and her sobs filled the otherwise silent room. She slumped over onto the floor, her arms coming around her face to blot out the reality around her. Spike had just realised her fears, her insecurities, and her knowledge that he could do just what he threatened, and he had the means to do it. He had written the iron clad contract, and it would appear he had the power to enforce the contract, after all he knew the law, it was his lively hood.
Taking in what lay before him, he instantly regretted his words, and he knew deep down that Buffy was only protecting the baby. She’d clearly been devastated by the turn of events and just wanted to take care of the precious life inside of her, that her sister had carelessly discarded like a piece of trash. Very much obviously, like him and their life together. Spike realised that he held onto the life that lay in the woman in front of him, as much as she did. Even in this mess, he had a responsibility not only to the baby, but also to her. With slow and silent steps, he moved over the carpeted floor, and sat down next to the crying woman, taking a hand, he placed it on her shoulder, she quickly pulled away from any contact with him. Not being put off he moved closer too her, and gently but with some soft resistance from her, he took her into his arms, embracing her trying to give her some comfort, and from the refuge of his chest she pleaded her case.
“Please don’t take the baby from me Spike. Lily does not want it, and I do! She doesn’t give a dam about you, me or the baby!” Buffy said between sobs, her voice heavy with fear, “It’s a new life that deserves someone that cares about it! I promise you Spike that I do care about this baby!”
“I know you do Luv, but………….but have you really thought about it! About what that means and everything that it entails!”
“I know what it means Spike! What I have to give up and what it might mean to my life! But that’s exactly what the baby is, part of my life!”
“Mine too, and don’t you think I deserve a say in this too?”
“Please Spike, you can be part of the baby’s life! You are the baby’s father! But he or she is part of me too! A part that I cannot give up now just because Lily does not want it, as much as she says she’s sorry about it, I’m not! I want the baby, and I want to be it’s mother! Lily doesn’t deserve it!”
Taking in what Buffy was saying, he could feel the hurt that lay deep within her from her sister’s actions. Which were unforgivable, she had left her sister maybe pregnant, after going through the painful procedure of insemination, and here he was threatening to make all that she’d gone though for nothing. His mind screamed in pain at the heavy thoughts that filled them, maybe just maybe if he could work it out with Lily………………..but with a distraught Buffy in front of him, he knew that he had to give that thought up. The most important person in all of this was the baby, and with that he gave up something he had once thought the centre of his universe.
His marriage and his wife.
In a split second the decision was made, he could feel his heart brake in two, as he realised that Buffy would never give up the baby, and he just had to live with that. He’d just have to live with the consequences, and what fate had delivered to him, but he didn’t want to leave everything up to Buffy. He was the child’s father, and deserved to decide on the child’s fate, so stepping deeper into his commitment to his child he made a few more decisions that would affect them both.
“Okay Buffy…...lets call a truce hey! It’s not good for you or the baby,” Spike pulled her head gently away from his chest, sweeping away the hair from her face, and wiping the tears from her face, “Some how we’ll make some sense of this mess, and we’ll make it work. But we need to consider the baby, okay, and this is only stressing you out! Let’s go back down stairs, have a hot drink and talk like the adults we are with no insults and no recriminations, okay Luv?”
Buffy could only nod her head, as she allowed him to help her stand, walk her back down the stairs, into the living room, and down onto the sofa. Moving into her kitchen he found the packet of herbal tea on the cabinet, turning on the kettle he made her another tea, and himself a coffee. Despite the bile that filled his throat from the copious amounts of alcohol in his system, he felt totally in control, and lost at the same time. It kinda felt like his life at the present moment, was now a total contradiction. Taking the two mugs into the living room he present one to Buffy, and sat down opposite her once again, taking a sip of his coffee, he watched her take slow controlled amounts of her own drink.
“We need to get through this Buffy, and it’s clear that we need to do it together,” Spike spoke to the distraught woman in front of him, “I have a few proposals for you that need to be ironed out.”
“Like what?”
“Firstly, that I will play an active role in this pregnancy and that I will have a say in what happens.”
“I won’t you too! I won’t deny you the baby, Spike!”
“I know that Buffy, you’ve made that abundantly clear, but I have to make that absolutely apparent. But I also have some other conditions.”
“What type of conditions?”
“I want to be with you through out the pregnancy in every way! There when you see the doctor, and there when the baby’s born.” Spike moved from his chair and sat down in front of her, “I want to be your support person, like Lily was meant to be, and……………”
“And? What else?”
“I want more, than that! I want you to move into my house so I can see the baby anytime!”
“No, that’s crazy!! I will not move into your house!” Buffy was confused with all these demands he was placing on her.
“You can and you will!”
“No!” Buffy was sure about that, she would accept some things that he demanded but not that.
“Why not? It’s a big house and I can keep an eye on you!”
“No!”
“No. You must see that it’s the sensible thing to do!”
“I said no!”
“Why not?”
“It’s her house!”
“Lily’s?” finally it dawned on him why she would not relent.
“Fine then I’ll move into here, and I’ll bring the baby’s things,” Spike conceded.
“No!”
“Yes Buffy, and that’s final!” Spike demanded.
Buffy knew when Spike was like a dog with a bone that he would not give up, and knew that she would not win this argument at all. Nevertheless, maybe she could have some say in it, and if it was her house, she would have some control at least in what happened. Therefore, she found herself reemitting but only in part.
“You can bring yourself, but you leave the baby things at home!”
“But you’ll need them!”
“I don’t want anything that she chose in my house, this is my baby, and it will have the things I want!”
Not wanting to create even more havoc between them, Spike only nodded his agreement in this discussion, needing to concede on this at least, draining the final liquid from his cup, he stood and walked to the door.
“Where are you going? I thought you wanted to talk!” Buffy asked of him.
“I think we’ve said enough tonight Buffy, and I’m going home,” Spike opened the front door, looking back at her, he said his final piece, “I’m going to get my things for tonight, as I meant what I said. I want to be here for everything!”
With that, Spike closed the door behind him, leaving a shell shocked Buffy in the house, as he walked down the stairs he pulled out his mobile phone and called a cab. While Buffy sat on the sofa thinking about what had just happened between them, the events racing through her mind. The events that had unfolded before her, where the last thing she expected to have happened at all, and she had yet to digest what had happened here tonight.
Spike had well and truly embed himself in her life, and she had no idea what that would mean. But she knew that she wasn’t alone in this mess, and in a way that gave her some comfort, but she dreaded at what cost it would have for her. But most of all she thought of the consequences that it may entail from her family when they found out, but with some resolve she realised she didn’t give a damn.
Let there be consequences!
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