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Spike looked up at her, feeling sucker punched by Buffy’s announcement. All both of them.

“My water, it broke, I need a cab…” and she started for the door, fumbling in her purse and whipping out a phone with trembling hands.

She was scared, that much he could register from her shaking hands. And she was leaving, with her water having just broken, and the baby inside her that was his. His. Fucking his.

“No, wait!” he shouted and she halted, peering over her shoulder at him.

“What?”

“I’ll—I’ll take you.”

“I have back up, it’s okay—“

“Just let me take you, okay? You’re shaking like a leaf and you’re a mess—“

“Yeah, you’re one to talk about being a mess!” she snapped.

“I’m not the one that just had amniotic fluid come out of me.”

“Look, just take me to the goddamned hospital and shut the fuck up, all right?”

“You are having my baby,” he said softly. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Well, there’s a lot of things you could do, but why cry over spilled milk or broken water, right?”

He said nothing. She couldn’t possibly know, understand or care what he was feeling at that moment, and he couldn’t expect her to. He was having a hard time grappling with exactly what he was feeling aside from shock and incredible sadness. He felt loss about this. Complete loss. She was having his baby and all he felt was that he was losing something, not gaining.

He couldn’t have cared less about the people watching them as they made their way to the elevator, instead, he barked at them to clean the mess up off his floor, not even really caring about that, but he knew his father-in-law would. Plus, considering the situation, he felt as though he needed to exert some kind of power.

Sod the bastard, he thought as he helped Buffy onto the elevator, only to have her bat his hands away when he put them on her.

She started breathing in some funky pattern, and he deduced that it was Lamaze breathing. She took Lamaze classes, he thought sadly, Did someone go with her? Or did she go alone? The thought of her alone made his heart break. I should have been there.

She was fumbling with her phone again and she wasn’t getting very far. Her fingers were shaking too much.

“Buffy, who can I call for you?” he asked, taking her phone from her.

“Doyle. I need Doyle.”

“Okay, let me see if I can get into your contacts…” Who is Doyle? He put the phone to his ear. “It’s ringing,” he informed her.

She snatched the phone from him and pressed it to her ear. “Doyle…my water broke…yeah, I’m on my way…no, I’m on my way…meet me there, okay? Hurry up, I’m scared and I’m starting to get really bad contractions….okay.”

She clicked her phone shut and slid it back in her purse. She stared at the control panel before her, and Spike stared at her. A tear slid down her cheek and he took her hand.

“Buffy, luv—“

“Not your love,” she told him, and he was sure she meant it to come out harsher than it had, but she was clearly upset and trying to keep it together. Maybe in a weird way, he was helping. This way, she could take shots at him and it gave her another focus than what was happening.

“So, how’ve you been?” he asked conversationally.

Her head turned slowly to him just as the doors dinged open. “Are you being serious right now?”

He bit back a grin. “Yeah.”

She thwacked him with her purse, “You’re an ass, you know that? Look at me!” she exclaimed and marched out of the elevator.

He followed, keeping in step beside her. “How has your pregnancy been?” he asked. And who is Doyle?

“It was…fine. I almost had to be put on bed rest…where the hell am I going?” she demanded once on the street.

Putting his hand gently on the small of her back, he guided her to the car park across the street. This time, she didn’t bat his hand away.

“Why were you almost on bed rest?” he asked.

“Stress. I was working still and it was just…I needed to take a rest.”

“But it was an all right pregnancy other than that?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“What’s the sex?”

“Don’t know, couldn’t tell. He or she liked to play hide and seek with his genitalia. Though, we were never able to really ‘seek’.”

Spike chuckled and brought her finally to the passenger side of his car, unlocking it for her. “I bet it’s a boy,” he told her, easing her in.

She looked up at him once she was seated and met his eyes. His breath caught in that instant.

“I bet it is too,” she said and then turned from him, shutting the door.

On the way to the hospital, he asked her this and that about her pregnancy, how she felt, what was the worst part for her, how she survived going out in the winter, how work was, what she planned to do next.

He kept her talking, even when she gripped the door and consul through a contraction and grit her teeth.

It struck him how men really didn’t have a clue about this sort of thing. No wonder the women inevitably turned on the man during labor; they were the ones experiencing the pain, while the man just made idle chit chat. Or tried to say inane things like “Just breathe honey, It’s going to be okay, honey, I love you, honey.” He figured if he was in excruciating pain, that would piss him off too.

Once they arrived at the hospital, Spike all but swerved into a spot, earning a glare from Buffy. That was fine by him. Helping her out of the car, she nearly squeezed his hand right off and he had to figure it was another contraction.

Making their way to the emergency room doors, Spike heard someone calling her name. Looking across the parking lot was a dark-haired man running toward them.

Doyle.

Buffy stopped and turned toward the man calling her and when she saw him, she burst into tears. "Doyle," she gasped through them and just waited for him to come to her. Once Doyle was there, he swept her up in his arms and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm just...scared. I've obviously never done this before."

Spike stood there, feeling awkward and out of place. He was the father, and yet he felt as if he did not belong in this equation at all. It hadn't even sunk in that he was indeed a father. Father-to-be. Was he a father or father-to-be? He supposed father-to-be while she was pregnant, and then father once the baby popped out.

God, the idea of it was staggering.

“Where did you come from? Who’s that?” Doyle asked, pointing at Spike.

Spike cleared his throat and stuck out his hand to the Irish bloke. “I’m Spike. Or, William.”

Doyle’s gaze darkened immediately. He looked at the hand Spike proffered and then glared at him. Spike dropped his hand, feeling like a world-class asshole.

“I’m going in,” Buffy announced and started to waddle off.

Doyle lunged after her, his arm around her, cooing to her. Spike stared after them for a long moment before deciding that he was going to follow.





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