35 days following Angel being sent to hell,
33 days since his return and Spike leaving.
Summer between Junior and senior year in High School for Buffy.
**~**
Buffy lay awake in the bed, Spike’s bed, their bed, trying to sleep. It had been thirty-three days since Angel came back and Spike had left and it still hurt just like that first night. That night she had searched the mansion for him, searched the streets around the mansion, but he was gone. Now, all she could do was try to sleep during the long, empty days and spend her nights looking for him, praying that he would come home; praying that he wasn’t dust; praying that she could find him. No one else could fill this aching hole in her heart.
Her friends, even her mom, tried to help her. They would come over, bring food, try to make light conversation, try to get her to go out with them, but she didn’t want to leave in case he came back. She only tore herself away from the mansion to patrol at night and scour the demon bars and sewers for any sign of him. Every demon or vamp she encountered she would question, had they seen Spike? Sometimes one would say they had and give her a new place to look for him, but, so far, none of the leads had panned out.
Angel even helped her for a while, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it and she asked him to leave. Last she heard, he had gone to L.A. She wondered if Spike could have gone to L.A. and, if Angel did find him, would he even tell her. It was all so frustrating, it made her head ache constantly, which caused her stomach to flip flop at the slightest thing – nausea was her new best friend, it seemed.
She needed sleep. She closed her eyes and tried the meditation technique Giles had taught her recently to get her mind to quiet enough for slumber. When it finally came, it was fitful and full of dreams. This day, her dreams were more unsettling than normal.
She as in a monastery, it was old, centuries old. The monks were in a circle around a symbol on the stone floor chanting something in Latin. One of them looked up and saw her. “Come my child, we have been waiting for you.” He held out a hand, she took it and followed him into a sunlit garden.
Sitting on a stone bench, the monk took both her hands in his and looked at her solemnly. “You are a great warrior,” he began. “Only you and your warrior lover can protect the Key, this is foretold and why you were chosen to be the creators and the protectors of the new vessel for its safekeeping.”
This really wasn’t making a lot of sense. “What kind of Key, what are you talking about?”
The monk smiled patiently and started again. “The Key opens portals to other dimensions, hell dimensions. If the portal is open, your world will cease to exist, it will be swallowed up by the hell dimensions. You must keep the Key safe from the Beast who wants to use it to open the portal.”
Wow, this sounded oddly familiar. Why did the nasties always want to go back to hell? she wondered. Why couldn’t they be more like Spike, happy with the world as it is?
Buffy asked, “Where is this Key?”
The Monk laid a hand on her flat stomach. “It is within you, growing, becoming. It is the joining of two great warrior lovers who have provided the vessel for the safekeeping of the Key.”
“What! What are you saying?!” Buffy was suddenly flushed and pulled away from the Monk.
“You are with child. The child is the vessel for the Key.”
“You put a demon baby in me!?” She was getting angry now.
“No, not a demon, a human, just as human as you and William. It is made of the two great warriors, it is yours, the ancient power of the Key is simply held inside, hidden, as long as you keep it safe from the Beast.”
“But . . . Spike . . . William . . . is not human, he’s a vampire!” Buffy was getting really confused.
“We made him human for those few moments, blessed his seed to come with yours and create the vessel.”
“I’m pregnant and Spike . . . William, is the father and the baby is human and is the Key to opening hell dimensions and we have to keep it safe from the Beast?” Buffy tried to wrap her head around this.
“Exactly.”
“NO!”
Buffy woke up with a start. Her heart was racing, her head pounding and, oh yeah, don’t forget your new best friend, nausea. She ran down the hall to the bathroom as her body tried to vomit up her toes.
When she finished she sat back on the cool tile and tried to make sense of all this. Could it just be a regular nightmare dream, not a Slayer dream? Sure, that could be it. . . just a nightmare, she’d been under a lot of stress lately and not sleeping well and, oh fuck, who are you kidding!? Of course it was a Slayer dream. She knew she'd missed her period, but she had chalked that up to the stress she'd been under. Obviously, that had been a bad assumption.
Spike had knocked her up and now he was gone. Just fucking wonderful! Her life was now complete. She curled up on the cold floor and started to cry, she wasn’t sure how much more the PTB thought she could take, but she was sure that she was on the edge of a complete meltdown.
She didn’t know how long she had lain there, but she had tile marks on her face when she stood up. She’d had Xander and Oz install a mirror in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago, so now she could see how horrible she looked. She washed her face and headed back to the bedroom to get dressed.
Walking downstairs, she found Giles and Willow in the corner of the main room in their new “research central”. Since Buffy had been expelled from school, they had moved most of Giles’ research books here and set up a table where they could work. They looked up when she came down and Willow greeted her with her most cheerful “Hi!”
“Hi Guys, what’s new . . . something I should be working on?” Buffy sincerely hoped not.
“Oh no, nothing to concern yourself with, Buffy.” Giles looked at her, she looked tired, she hadn’t been eating or sleeping properly and he sincerely worried about her mental health, as well. He vowed that if he found Spike, the vampire would be begging for the end of the world very soon.
“Good. I have to go out a few minutes, I may actually, umm . . ." God, how was she going to break this to Giles? To her mother!? She started again, “I have to check something out and I might have something I need you to research when I get back.”
Giles and Willow looked at her worriedly, it was only five in the afternoon, Buffy never left the mansion anymore until after dark.
“Are you ok?” Willow asked. “Do you need some help, you know, cause me - all over the helping.”
“No, I’m fine, I just got a lead on something and I need to check it out. So, I’ll be back in a while.” Buffy headed out the door and started down the street to the bodega on the corner. When she went in, she realized that there was no way she could buy a pregnancy test here – she came in here all the time, she knew these people. She turned around and started walking away from town. There was another little store she rarely went to on the edge of town; it wasn’t very far, she’d get the test there.
After finally deciding on a test and purchasing it, she went in the bathroom of the store and read the directions, peed on the stick and watched the word “Pregnant” come up. Tears stung the back of her eyes and she willed them back. She put the test in her pocket and headed back for the mansion.
She was walking down the alley, head down, eyes glued to the pavement. The sun had just gone down when she felt a familiar tingling on the back of her neck: vampire. She stopped and sighed; she didn’t feel like this right now. Then she heard a familiar baritone. Her head shot up and, sure enough, walking in front of her with his arm draped over a blond girl was Spike. She felt her face flush and her breath quicken. What the fuck is he doing!?
She was on them in a flash, yanking his free arm and whipping both blonds around to face her.
“Slayer!” Spike exclaimed in surprise. He had been so careful, Buffy never came down in this part of town. There were hardly any vamps down here at all, no reason for her to even be here.
“Spike.” Her voice was calm, not belaying her rattled nerves. She looked at the blond on his arm. “Harmony?”
“Buffy,” Harmony addressed her. “What’s your malfunction?”
“What’s my MALFUNCTION?! You do know he’s a VAMPIRE, don’t you Harmony?”
“Yeah, well, that makes two of us, doesn’t it? And just one of you, Slayer,” Harmony retorted.
Harmony was a vampire – God, she must be slipping, how could she not have known that when she came up to them. Because all you could feel was Spike, that’s why, she silently answered her own question.
“Could I have a word with Spike please, in private?” Buffy didn’t really feel like a fight right now.
“No way! If you have something to say to my boyfriend, you can say it in front of me!” Harmony retorted.
Her BOYFRIEND? “Fine.” She turned to stare at him. ”Spike, I’m pregnant. You got me pregnant.” Her words were blunt and to the point.
“What!” Harmony was indignant. “You cheated on me with the SLAYER!? You sick bastard! How could you do that to me!?”
“Shut up you dizzy bint!” Spike pushed Harmony away and turned back to Buffy. “What are you playin’ at, Slayer?”
Buffy folded her arms across her chest. “You. Me. Sex. Pregnant. Even Harmony can understand that, Spike.” She pulled the test out of her pocket and waved it under his nose, as if he could tell anything with her waving it around like that.
“You Bitch!” Harmony started towards Buffy, “Get your own boyfriend! Spikey’s mine!”
When Harmony got in range, Buffy clocked her with a right hook and sent her down on her ass.
“SPIKEY, I think you and I need to have a conversation.” Her eyes pleaded with him to come with her, she could feel the tears threatening.
Spike grabbed the hand that held the pregnancy test and looked at it. “Pregnant,” it said.
“Sorry to bust your bubble, Slayer, but vamps don’t make babies.” He dropped her hand and continued. “Shouldn’t you be talking to your sweet Angel about this – he probably came back all jazzed up and . . .”
Before he could finish, Buffy had slapped him hard across the face. “You son of a bitch!” She couldn’t stop the tears now. “I didn’t sleep with Angel! I have no desire to sleep with Angel!”
Spike rubbed his cheek and looked at her with disdain. “Not what I heard, heard you tell him you LOVE him, you FORGIVE him, you’ll HELP him . . . looks like you HELPED him alright. Did he lose ‘is soul again, Slayer? Did you fuck it out of him again? That why you’re here, need my help putting your rabid dog back in 'is pen?”
Buffy hit him on the jaw with an uppercut as hard as she could, throwing him back against the wall and down onto his ass.
She stood over him, screaming, “You have NO IDEA what you heard! You heard me trying to calm him down, try to make him stay put so I could go get YOU to help me. Do I love him? Yeah, a part of me will always love him, Spike, just like a part of you will always love Dru, but I’m not IN LOVE with him! I’m IN LOVE with YOU, you fucking idiot! And you can believe it or not, WILLIAM, but this is YOUR BABY.”
She threw the pregnancy test in his lap and turned on her heel walking back the way she’d come with as much dignity as she could manage.
When she reached a cross road, she turned and started running as fast as she could; she had to get away. When Buffy stopped running, she was standing on Revello Drive, just a block from her house. Mom, she thought. She ran until she got to the front door. She’d seen her mom over the last weeks, talked to her, tried to explain things to her. Her mom would listen, but always pressed her to come home, she didn’t understand that Buffy couldn’t come home again. Now, all Buffy wanted was exactly that.
Buffy knocked on the door and waited. When her mom finally opened the door, Buffy collapsed in her arms, sobbing.
When she’d calmed down enough to talk, Buffy told her mom everything, everything about the pregnancy, about the prophecy and about seeing Spike and his reaction, about how he hated her. How was she supposed to protect the baby alone? The prophecy said the two warriors would be needed, two warriors in love. Fat lot those prophets knew!
Buffy ate some soup her mother had made and promised that she would make an appointment with a doctor the next day to check on the baby and get started on pre-natal vitamins. Her mom tried to get her to stay the night, but suddenly it just didn’t feel right to be here, she needed to be back at the mansion. She told her mother she loved her and that she’d let her know how the doctor’s visit went and she left, walking determinedly back to what she now considered her home.
When she got back, Willow and Giles were gone. Thank god. She knew she needed to tell them, but she didn’t have the energy for it now. She went in the kitchen and got a Tab before plopping down at the research table. Maybe I can find something about this on my own, she thought. As she started flipping through the first book, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Prophecy’s but Were Afraid to Ask”, she felt him come in. She closed her eyes and swallowed the knot in her throat before looking up.
Tears threatened her again but she blinked them back. He didn’t approach her, but walked over to the fireplace, instead.
“Where’s Angel?” Spike asked as if he was asking about the weather.
“Gone,” Buffy answered simply.
“You just let him go, then?”
“Nooo, I had Willow put a spell on him so that he wouldn’t be able to hurt any girls again and then I told him to leave. Which you would have known if you had stuck around long enough to find out what was going on.” Buffy folded her arms across her chest and met his eyes before continuing, “If you had trusted me and believed in me instead of breaking your promises.”
Spike’s jaw tightened, he forced himself to relax before continuing. “So, you’re really up the duff?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s mine?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The usual way.” Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. “It’s a prophecy thing. Remember that night?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t have to tell him which night; he knew the night she was talking about. Christ, he dreamt about it every night since then.
It was her turn for questions. “Have you fed off anyone?” It was her worst fear.
“No.”
“Has Harmony?”
“No, not while . . .” his voice trailed off. Buffy filled in “you were together?”
He just looked at her and nodded.
“Did you turn her?” she asked, her voice even.
“No, Angelus turned her a while back.”
“Did you sleep with her?” It was her second worst fear.
“Buffy, please . . .” Spike started.
“Spike, it’s a yes or no question. Did. You. Sleep. With. Harmony?”
“Yeah, but . . ."
Buffy put up her hand to stop him. She closed her eyes tight shut to block the tears that were threatening, stupid pregnant woman hormones, she thought.
“You don’t understand,” he started again.
Buffy opened her eyes and glared at him. “Oh, I understand perfectly, Spike.” She started calmly, slowly, but then the words and feelings and disappointment and pain rushed out with each new thought.
“I understand that you didn’t believe me when I told you I loved you.
"I understand that you didn’t trust me enough to stay and find out what was going on.
"I understand that I made a mistake by believing you when you promised you wouldn’t leave me; you wouldn't hurt me.
"I understand if you really loved me, you would have fought for me if you thought Angel was going to take me away from you.
"I understand that I spent the last month combing the sewers, the streets and the bars looking for you, praying that you weren’t dusted, crying myself to sleep while you . . . you were off FUCKING HARMONY and laughing at the stupid, gullible Slayer!
"I UNDERSTAND that I’m pregnant and alone and I puke my guts out every day and . . . and . . .”
Buffy broke down into sobs, she buried her face in her hands and tried to calm down but the reality of her situation hit hard and she couldn’t stop.
Tears flowed down Spike’s face. She didn’t understand, she really didn’t, but how could he argue with her when his actions told a different story? She was right, he ran because he thought she wanted Angel and not him. Why didn’t he fight for her? He felt so hurt when he heard her words, he just had to get away and then he was ashamed for running and couldn’t bring himself to come back and face her, to face THEM.
And the thing with Harmony, it just happened . . . he only ever thought of Buffy when he was with Harmony, but he knew that didn’t make any difference, it didn’t excuse what he had done.
He moved towards her, but as he laid his hand on her shoulder she cuffed him and screamed, “DON’T TOUCH ME! GO! GO BACK TO HER! I’M SURE YOU’LL BE VERY HAPPY TOGETHER!”
Buffy jumped up from her chair and sprinted past him, up the stairs to the bedroom. The slamming door echoed through the mansion.
Spike walked slowly up the stairs and stood outside the door. He could hear her crying, could feel her pain and he was the cause of it. He'd promised to never leave her, to never hurt her, and what had he done the minute things had gotten hard for him? He'd broken his promises. God, how would she ever trust him again? How could he ask her to? Spike leaned his back against her door and slid down to the floor. Hugging his knees to his chest he laid his forehead against them and cried.