Buffy was just into her second trimester with the baby. She told her mom the same day she took the test at Willow’s and discovered that her mom was an unbelievable person. Her mom was surprised of course, but she didn’t pester her with questions or give her a ‘disappointed in you’ talk. Buffy guessed she could see how torn up the whole pregnancy was making her anyway.
Sure there was a part of her that was happy that the baby was Will’s, but more than anything she wished he was there with her from the beginning, that he had wanted to stay with her baby or not. She felt that he didn’t want to stay. He left because he wanted something bigger and better than Sunnydale, bigger and better than Buffy. That’s what she told herself when she wished he was there.
She’d been going to the doctor for her checkups and everything with the pregnancy was going fine. Four months in she wasn’t showing much, but she could see the little baby bump when she looked in the mirror at home. She’d started school just like she planned all along, but her long term plans and even some short term ones had changed because of the pregnancy. For one she was now planning on taking the spring semester off to have the baby and take care of him. She thought she would sign up for some classes to take from home and some in the summer to stay in the mix of things, but she didn’t want everyone knowing that she was having a baby at 18, or would she be 19.
When she went to sleep at night she wondered what would happen to her life. She wondered what her baby would be like. She wanted it to be a boy so she could name him William. He would stay with her, she thought. Then she’d think how that wasn’t fair to the baby. It wasn’t fair to make her little Will stay with her because his father wouldn’t. She knew better, even now. She wished William had stayed, but she would make the best of her situation.
The baby was a part of her. She could feel him growing inside of her and she loved him more than she’d loved anything in her life. She could see him growing up. He was a toddler and then a little boy and then a bigger boy and bigger. She could see so far as him graduating high school, but then she wondered ‘What next?’
She didn’t know what came next for her. Things had gotten so mixed up even if it appeared she was doing everything right. She was going to school and she was preparing for the baby, but she still felt so confused. Her heart cried out for William.
Whenever she got confused that’s who she would call. In the last four months she’d picked up the phone several times to call him, but she never dialed the number. She didn’t have a number after he had called her the one time a few days after graduation, but Willow had told her she could always call information for a William Giles or she could try his dad, as a last resort of course.
Well, it turned out that he was in information. She wrote the number down and looked at it frequently. She thought about calling even more often than she picked up the phone to call. Willow had told her she should tell him about the pregnancy, and Buffy knew she was right. William had a right to know.
So, after four months of waiting and thinking about it she finally picked up the phone and dialed the number. A minute later a guy answered the phone, “Hello.”
“Hi, I’m calling for William. Is he there?” Buffy asked, feeling more nervous than she sounded.
“No, he moved.”
“Oh,” she said softly, disappointment hitting her.
“I do have a number for him though if you’d like it,” the man said nicely.
“Oh, yes. Thank you,” she said, the hope filling her again.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Buffy took down the number and thanked the man again.
Before she lost her nerve she called the new number. It rang several times before a woman picked up the phone, “Hello,” said the woman’s voice.
“Hel-lo,” Buffy said, her nerves returning. “Is this the right number for William?” she asked.
“No, no William lives here. Sorry. Anything else?” The woman’s voice said with an irritated air.
“No, thank you. Sorry for the mistake. Bye,” Buffy said, hanging up the phone. Her heart sank. She didn’t know what had happened to William and she needed him now. “No, I don’t need him. I can do this on my own,” she said with determination.
On the other side of the last phone conversation a skimpy blonde wearing everything in pink hung up the phone and turned back to her live-in boyfriend with a little pout.
“What’s wrong princess?” he asked.
She strolled over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I see then. Another wrong number was it?” he smirked.
“Yes… why do we keep getting them, Spike?” she asked.
“It’s probably crazies looking for me, you know?” he said with a chuckle.
“Yes, and it’s usually women,” she added with a vengeance.
“Oh? Does that make you jealous?” he asked huskily.
“Yes… and horny,” she said.
The bleach blonde rocker and the skimpy blonde went upstairs.
Buffy sat in her living room quietly. She wasn’t sure what to do now. She had tried calling him and had the wrong number. There was something in her brain that told her to call information again, that in 4 months they would have gotten a new number for William Giles, but her heart was a different matter. It felt let down and she didn’t want to try again for fear of another let down. So the question was “What do I do now?”
She asked the question to the empty room around her and discovered that the best thing for her would be to move on. She had a new life shaping up for her. She had a baby to take care of and she couldn’t be pining over some guy from high school, even if it was the father.
The doctor had given her an approximate due date from the date of conception. She was due in early March. Her plans to attend UC Sunnydale for the fall semester and not the spring were already in order. She hadn’t talked to her mom about them yet, but she hoped that she would understand.
Buffy put on some shoes and walked out of the house. She’d come home for a visit today. Her mom wanted to have dinner with her and she had agreed. Normally she would be in the dorm with Willow. College life was nice, but she didn’t feel that she could fully live it at the moment. She couldn’t party and she couldn’t wear skimpy clothes and go out dancing. Her life was so different than the way she had imagined it. Of course Willow didn’t really do that ‘normal’ college stuff either. She occasionally went out with Oz, but she was the studious one who wanted to make the best grades in college just as she had in high school. Sometimes Willow managed to drag Buffy to the Bronze and once there Buffy did have fun.
Walking around Sunnydale now she was able to clear her mind a little. Every place she passed held a memory though. She’d been in Sunnydale for a long time. She had moved to Sunnydale when she was a little girl and now she didn’t even remember living in LA. Sunnydale was all she could ever want in a hometown, a place to grow up in. It was small, but not too small. It had all these nooks and crannies and now she found herself wishing she could raise her son in this town.
But that’s what it was… wishing. She didn’t want to stay in Sunnydale any more. She couldn’t. There were too many memories of William and her life. They’d had this wonderful friendship and she had lost that. She wanted to start over somewhere new and fresh. She didn’t want to go to LA. It was a big city, but she didn’t want the fear of running into him. No, she had now decided on San Francisco. She would move at the end of the semester in December. She would also go to the University there and apply for admissions next fall, but hopefully take classes in the spring and summer too. She could take classes from her apartment in the spring, the same as she had planned to do here. Now all she had left to do was pack, and break the news to her friends and mom.