Buffy was about to pop. She was hot – there was a heat wave going on in Boston in fucking June and she was roasting. There was never a heat wave that early. Those usually happened in, say, July and August, not June. And she could not seem to turn her air conditioner up high enough to stop the sweltering she was currently experiencing.
Her mother had warned her that carrying in the summer would be incredibly uncomfortable, and well, her mother hadn’t been lying. However, Buffy had pretty much found herself on the warm side during her entire pregnancy, even in the dead of winter she was taking trips out on her balcony with no jacket on in the thirty-degree weather. Doyle had dragged her in the apartment when he’d actually witnessed her doing it. She’d nearly gone Linda Blair on him for it, too.
As a matter of fact, she was feeling very Linda Blair at the moment. Well, Linda Blair if she were to have a pity party. Buffy tried to attribute it to the fact that she was so hot, uncomfortable, almost due and impatient –she was literally days away—and she felt as if it was never going to end. She was tired of the hunger, the backaches, the swollen ankles, and the mood swings. She was tired of being tired at eight o’ clock at night, of not being able to have a goddman beer for Christ’s sake! She was also incredibly jealous that Faith had her baby in her arms, that she had a house with Robin, that she had a spouse that so obviously loved her. What did Buffy have? Yeah, she had supportive friends, but they weren’t there when she was falling asleep and wanted someone to hold her and assuage her fears about giving birth. She didn’t have someone to rub her feet after a tiring day or someone to feel the baby when it kicked inside her belly and she was excited about it…
She had nothing.
Doyle was over all the time, but it wasn’t the same. Doyle wasn’t her lover, wasn’t her spouse, wasn’t the baby’s father. Even if, for all intents and purposes, he acted very much like a Daddy-to-be. He helped her turn her study into a nursery, helped her choose the Humpty-Dumpty theme she wanted for the baby, feeling it could go either way for a boy or a girl considering her child seemed to make a game out of hiding its sex from her at the few ultrasounds she’d been to. He’d even helped her figure out the necessities of what she needed and then registered her at Kids R’ Us for her baby shower – that he planned. She was appreciative, she truly was, but again, Doyle wasn’t her significant other.
And it was during all those musings of what she didn’t have that a dangerous idea popped in her mind, and like a dog with a bone, she wasn’t able to let go of it.
I should tell Spike.
“No, that’s dumb,” she muttered, shaking her head. “And really,” she asked her air conditioner, as if could impart any wisdom when it couldn’t even cool her off, “What would be the point? What would telling him do? Nothing. It would do abso-fucking-lutely nothing. It’d just create problems.”
Tell him.
Her brain, she decided was trying to get her in even more trouble than she was already in. Tell him? Tell him? Why? What would be the point?
Well, he was all comfy and cozy in his big house, with his vintage car, his bitchy wife and, she was sure, his large screen plasma, flat screen TV. He was off gallivanting when he wasn’t with said wife, boinking the women in Boston like a dog in heat.
Why should he get off scott free? It was no longer a matter of why she shouldn’t tell him, but why shouldn’t she not?
And so she grabbed her purse, a water bottle, a copy of her baby’s picture, and was out the door. She was a woman on a mission.
The burst of confidence Buffy had on the way over started to wane when she was standing before the reception desk and the receptionist asked her who she was there to see.
Shit. What am I doing?
“Miss?” the brunette with the beady eyes asked.
“I’m here to see William Giles,” she blurted out. “I uh, have an appointment with him.”
”You do?” the girl said, frowning, and looking down at some book. “I don’t see you here.”
“Well, see, I …had originally cancelled, but then decided to see him after all and that’s probably why I’m not …there.”
“Well, I don’t know if –“
“Buffy?”
Her head popped up and she found William standing there, standing there as if he couldn’t believe she was really there. She pretty much couldn’t believe she was really there. Instinctively, her hand went to her swollen stomach. That’s him baby, that’s your Daddy. And then she wanted to cry.
“Hi, I needed to talk to you about the uh, proposal for the school?” she managed to get out, somewhat awkwardly. And then she wondered why the hell she cared considering he deserved to be exposed for what he was doing.
He cleared his throat, “Of course, follow me.”
It was when she came round the desk and his eyes bulged, that she realized he hadn’t been able to see her pregnant belly until then. She swallowed hard and without a word followed him to his office.
She studied the back of his head and repeated to herself: Scum. Jerk. Asshole. Cheater. Liar, over and over.
It didn’t matter that she had once fancied herself falling for him, that was just flights of fancy, a silly school – girls want, that was her being in love with the idea of love. It wasn’t real.
So then why are you here, again? her traitorous mind asked.
Stepping into his office that she was sure could be an apartment for two at least; she cleared her throat as he went round his desk and faced her.
“You’re …pregnant,” he said, stating the obvious and gesturing to her belly.
“I am.”
“Why are you here?”
He wasn’t getting that it was his? How dumb was he? I mean…did he do math at all? Course, he was a man, but come on!
She studied him, gathering her courage. He’d lost weight. His roots were coming in; he had bags under his eyes and his eyes looked bloodshot. He looked like hell. Gorgeous hell, but hell nonetheless.
“You look like crap,” she blurted out.
“Thanks,” he said dryly, rolling his eyes. “What do you want, Buffy? I haven’t seen you in a year.”
”Nine months.”
“What?”
“You haven’t seen me in nine months. Or thirty eight weeks and three days to be exact.”
“Counting the days since you’ve seen me, luv?” he asked, smirking.
“No, that’s how many weeks pregnant I am.”
He started making like a guppy, and she realized that understanding was dawning on him.
“It takes nine months, but I swear it feels like a year, for a baby to grow to term inside you. Well, me. A woman. You get my…” she shook her head. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew the picture of their baby and placed it on his desk. “That’s your child. Our child.”
He stared at the picture, not moving. He stared at it, but made no move to grab it, to look closer. All he did was stand stock still and stare at it, his mouth hanging open.
Buffy wasn’t sure what to do, and frankly, she really didn’t know what she expected him to do – nothing, possibly. What could he do? Really, nothing. Nothing that she wanted part of anyway. She wanted him to know, and now he did.
However, that was when she earned the award for “Worst timing ever”.
Shutting her eyes, she cursed.
“What?” he croaked.
“My water just broke.”