It was late on a Saturday night. She should be patrolling, she should be partying; she should be doing anything other than going to school. But no—the second after she’d explained to her mother that no, she wasn’t pregnant, she’d been out the door and on her way to the library to try to explain herself to her incredibly confused and undoubtedly pissed-off Watcher.
Buffy sucked in a deep breath, winced, and pushed the school doors open, a rambling, eager Willow trailing behind her.
“I don’t understand how so many people could know so soon,” the redhead was saying. “How would the janitor know?”
“I really don’t care.”
“I didn’t think Cordelia knew that many people.”
“Willow, shut up.”
“And even so, how mad can Giles be? He’s British.” She paused thoughtfully. “The British don’t get mad all that easily, do they? I mean, the maddest I’ve ever seen Giles is when Xander spilled soda on one of his books, and even then he wasn’t too mad. He just got quiet and did the jaw-tightening thing and went along with his business. I really think you’re overreacting.”
Willow had nervously yammered on the entire way over to the library, and Buffy was beginning to think that the fist-to-the-mouth tactic might be the best way to shut her up. Obviously, the contractual, however tacit best-friend decree of silence hadn’t done any good. Not only had Willow spilled the possibility of the Slayer’s tummy being full of Spike’s lovechild, but she’d had to tell Cordelia of all people. For God’s sakes, she might as well have advertised her problems on a blinking, neon-colored billboard.
“And if he’s really mad, then…well, it wasn’t your fault, was it? We can just tell him that it wasn’t your fault. After all—”
Buffy stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around, her eyes wide and notably not amused. “No, it wasn’t my fault. I know that, you know that, and Giles will know that. But he shouldn’t have heard it from a girl named Rita! He should’ve heard it from me. It’s my thing to tell.”
“But you’re not pregnant.”
She stomped. “I know that. I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about the other thing. The thing I told you in confidence. The thing where I was…the thing with Spike. I told you that because I needed to tell someone I trusted. Someone I could rely on to keep quiet while I work this out. And the second—the second I turn my back, you blab to Cordelia?”
“H-hey! It wasn’t a second, all right? I held it in for two weeks!” Willow raised a hand in defense. “B-besides, I didn’t tell Cordy about Spike. She kinda just guessed on her own.”
“How would she guess that?”
“How should I know? Maybe it was the moon eyes you guys gave each other that night at the Bronze. I don’t know, but I so did not spill about Spike. Gimme a little credit!”
Buffy planted her hands on her hips. “Credit? So, you want credit for not telling Cordy about the forced sex, but hey, let’s blab about the pregnancy scare?”
“There was no pregnancy scare! You’re just wigged because you’re feeling things and you’re trying to find something to blame it on.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I have ears, Buffy. I’ve been listening to you go on and on and on for days. This random I could be pregnant thing was just another in a long line of really lame explanations for how you’re feeling.”
She arched a brow. “So you decided to tell Cordy because you thought I was being stupid?”
Willow squeaked and shook her head defensively. “No! No. It wasn’t…it was supposed to be…look, for one miniscule second, your highly irrational panicking leaked onto me. I started thinking about what would happen if you were pregnant and then the pressure got to me.”
“It got to you?”
She pouted. “I’m not saying I have a good excuse. I dunno. Suddenly, I seemed like the wrong go-to girl. A-and I so told her not to tell.”
“Yeah, because Cordy’s one to bypass hot gossip.”
“She’s supposed to be our friend now,” Willow protested weakly.
“She is, but she’s not the most reliable secret keeper, which is why I went to you and not Cordelia.” Buffy shook her head and turned on her heel, continuing her relentless march toward the library. “Remind me next time to cut out the middleman. At least then I’ll know what I’m getting myself into.”
“Buffy, I’m really sorry—”
“Yeah, so am I.”
“No. No! Stop.” Willow seized her arm and dragged her to a halt. “Please. I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. It was a moment of blind stupidity. I started panicking…and I know this isn’t an excuse, but it made sense at the time. I really don’t know why, but it did. And I’m super, super sorry.”
Buffy just glared at the redhead for a minute, irritated with herself when she felt her anger fade. She wanted so badly to be pissed at Willow. She really, really wanted to be pissed at Willow. However, like her mother, she had a soft spot for apologies, especially when she conceded that she’d dumped something rather huge on her best friend’s shoulders. Even if her panic about a nonexistent vamp-baby hadn’t been for naught, she’d done a fair amount of burden-loading onto Willow over the past two weeks. And while she might never, ever comprehend why anyone would think that turning to Cordelia Chase was a good idea, she understood the motives behind it.
And truthfully, things could be worse. With any luck, Giles didn’t know the Spike part of the equation just yet. Maybe she still had time on her hands.
“Yeah, okay,” Buffy said softly, nodding. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure?”
“Well, I don’t wanna be mad at you. There are only so many people I can talk to without wanting to hit them on the head with something heavy, and I really don’t wanna add you to the list.” She forced a smile and tossed an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go get this crazy thing over with.”
Something told her that she’d just added another item to her growing list of things that were more easily said than done.
Buffy was certain that Giles was going for the world’s longest polishing session with those bifocals of his. In the ten minutes she’d been rambling about why she hadn’t come to him first, he hadn’t managed to look her directly in the eye at all. His skin was pink from blushing at the undoubtedly unseemly topic, and he kept coughing into his hands whenever she mentioned the word pregnant.
It really didn’t help that Xander and Cordelia were there. She didn’t know how or why they’d known to come, but there they were. Standing there and listening to her as though she were actually making sense.
Maybe Cordy had just anticipated that she’d come to explain, and had dragged Xander along for the show.
When she paused to catch her breath, Giles finally raised his hand and she about dropped in relief. If she said another word, dug her hole any deeper, she might as well fall through the earth.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” he said slowly, a long sigh rolling off his shoulders. “Why…after so many months…would you think it possible?”
Buffy frowned and glanced to Xander, whose eyes were on the ground. “Huh?”
“Well, it’s been well more than nine months since you were with Angel,” Giles continued. “Am I correct?”
It’d been nearly a year, but she really didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “Yeah. I mean, yes, of course. But I don’t—”
“There’s where I am confused. I don’t understand why you would suddenly worry about having a child.”
Her head was beginning to hurt. “I wasn’t—” Buffy stopped dead, her eyes finding Xander’s. He was looking at her intently now, and then she understood. She understood everything, and it shocked the hell out of her. And as astonished as she was, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’d offered her a cover, and she was going to take it. “I wasn’t…ummm…I wasn’t thinking that a vampire would have a normal…I dunno. I guess I thought it might be different…with vampires. I thought since he’s not…he’s not human, that it might be different.”
She deserved an award. She’d just provided the lamest of all lame excuses.
Giles nodded and cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, the next time you’re worried about something so…well, preposterous, please come to me. No matter how much trouble you think you’re in, Buffy, you know that my door is always open to you. At the very least…” He tossed an irritated, sideways glance to Cordelia, “we’ll avoid relaying messages via the rumor mill.”
Cordy offered an apathetic shrug. “Don’t look at me. I just told Allison.”
“I told you not to tell anyone,” Willow practically growled.
“Correction: you told me not to tell Xander, and I didn’t.”
“Leave it to you to translate that so liberally.”
“Yeah, you really should know better.”
“Erm—yes,” Giles agreed, nodding softly. “Quite. Now that we’ve put this incredibly obnoxious matter behind us, though, I think it best if you four return home. It’s getting rather late.” His eyes met Buffy’s. “That is, unless there is anything further you wish to tell me?”
Buffy suddenly found herself the focus of four very intense, anticipatory stares. However, she pasted on a smile and shook her head. “Nope,” she replied. “That’s about it.”
He nodded, and she sighed.
Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been the nightmare scenario she’d envisioned. She still didn’t ever want to go through it again. It wasn’t worth the worry lines.
It had been the world’s strangest day, and she’d seen some strange ones. Waking up in the burnt-out factory to Spike’s amorous mouth—yeah, that’d been pretty weird. Freaking out over having a vampire’s baby and, in the process of quelling her admittedly bogus fear, spilling the beans to the whole town? Somehow, she didn’t see the weirdness of that being topped anytime soon.
Though she would never know how she ended the day alone with Xander. It made for much awkwardness—if not only for his continued silence on the whole matter, then definitely for her growing desire to hit him simply for being a guy who wasn’t Spike.
This anti-men thing was really beginning to wig her out.
It was a good thing that Xander had caved and bought a car the previous week. With the way her day was going, the last thing she needed to do was run into Spike and melt into his arms. Not that there would be automatic meltage—only of course there would, because she’d been aching for him ever since the ground-moving liplocking the week before. She was addicted to him, and it had been much too long since her last fix.
That thought did little more than drag her back to the whole Buffy’s a disgusting psycho who gets off on force thing. Addictions were bad, bad things. She couldn’t have him, and the sooner she got used to that, the better.
“Will!” Xander called out his window. He had dropped off Cordy first, and Buffy was, of course, the last stop on the way back to his place. “Are we doing study group tomorrow for bio?”
The redhead whirled around and scowled. “Listen to me, jerk-face. If you have something to say to me, you say it to Buffy.” She paused, her eyes widening in horror. “Ohh! Xander, I’m sorry. Yeah, we’re totally on for tomorrow.”
“That oughta be fun,” Buffy murmured under her breath.
“Yeah,” Xander agreed, turning back to Willow with a nod. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be by around one.”
“I hate your breathing guts.”
“See you tomorrow!” He pulled back onto the street with a wry grin, rolling up his window. “I’m beginning to think we need to do a relusting spell. I’d rather have a Willow who wants to do wicked things to my male parts than…a Willow who wants to do wicked things to my male parts.”
Buffy gripped the door handle and squeezed. “So help me Xander, mention your male parts again…”
He flashed her a wounded look. “Oh. Have you jumped on the Xander-hating train?”
“No. I’m on a general man-hating train right now.”
He nodded and was quiet for a minute. “Because of Spike?” he ventured softly. “Don’t kill Cordy. She kinda spilled after I wigged about you getting all pelvic with Angel again…or having Elvis’s demon spawn.”
“You knew it was Spike and you didn’t wig out?”
“I didn’t say that. I just didn’t want to start blabbing to Giles without hearing it from you first.” Xander sighed and pulled into her drive, killing his headlights. “So…before the ‘Xander-smash’ impulse takes hold, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Buffy pursed her lips. “You’re being unusually rational.”
“Hey, I have a would-be witch who wants my head mounted on her wall half the time. I don’t wanna add a pissed off slayer.” He smiled weakly. “And I wouldn’t call it rational. It’s more like a survivor instinct. So, when exactly did you lose your mind and have sex with Spike?”
She shivered. “I’d rather not talk about this.”
“Buffy—”
“I mean it. I’d really rather not talk about this. It’s in the past. It’s over. It’s not happening again. It was…it was something that got out of hand really fast. And I’ve been wigging out ever since—obviously—but that’s it.” She unhooked her seatbelt and swung the passenger door open. “I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s over. Let it be over.”
A long moan stretched at Xander’s lips. “Oh God, Buffy. I didn’t wanna believe it. Please don’t tell me you were actually stupid enough to—”
Her eyes darkened. How typical. “I knew you couldn’t resist.”
“You know what happened last time! When are you gonna get it through your head that vampires equal bad?”
“When are you gonna get it through your head that certain things are my business? This is one of them.”
“If there’d been demon spawn—”
“There is no demon spawn! And even if there was, it wouldn’t make it any more your business.” Buffy released a heavy sigh and pressed a hand to her brow. “Look, thanks for the ride. Mention this again, and I’ll snap your spine in half.” She released a trembling sigh. “I mean it, Xander. Mind your own business.”
“I consider the possible deaths of my friends my business!”
“I’m alive. You’re alive. Willow’s alive. No one’s dead. No one’s gonna be dead. Leave it.”
That was it. She slammed the car door shut and practically ran to her house. No sense waiting for a reply that would only anger her more. She didn’t want to argue tonight. She just wanted to sleep. Things would look better in the morning.
Tomorrow would be better. It had to be.
At least it couldn’t be any worse.
To be continued