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Chapter 16: Changes

It’s two thirty six in the morning, Cordelia is fast asleep and Angel is as secure as he can be that Connor is safe. Angel casts them one last glance before he walks out the door and heads out into the night, shutting the door behind him so soundlessly that not even a mouse would hear any disturbance. He looks out into the night and prepares to pick up Spike’s scent and find him, to track him down. He finds very quickly however that he won’t have to look very far. Leaning against the Maple in the front yard Spike is stubbing out a cigarette butt with his dirtied and extremely broken in Doc Martins.

“’Ello peaches,” Spike says, his eyes still cast toward the ground, then he looks up to meet the elder vampire’s black eyes. “Come to give me the ol’ ‘hurt ‘er and die’ speech’?” Spike stands up tall and takes a stride toward his grandsire.

“Well I was gonna go for more of a ‘touch her and die’ kinda thing.”

“Bit too late for that don’ ya think?” Spike asks quirking an eyebrow then he pulls another cigarette from his pack and a lighter from the pocket of his duster.

Angel flinches for a fraction of a second thinking about Spike touching Buffy and all the ways in which his grandchilide’s risen eyebrow implies that he has done; then he returns to his natural solemn and brooding appearance.

“Spike…” Angel begins with a firm tone. Spike lights his smoke.

“Don’ bother Angelus, if I hurt ‘er I’ll bloody take a stroll in the sunlight myself,” the blonde vampire’s words are serious and he turns his eyes upward.

As smoke rises from Spike’s cold lips Angel follows it to see that Spike’s eyes are cast upon Buffy’s window. The same window Angel remembers climbing through to visit her at night so many years earlier. Then the dark vampire starts to analyze Spike’s expression, the depth of his eyes, and the tenseness of his muscles. He sees the pile of cigarette butts that surround the tree trunk and Angel can only come to one conclusion.

“You’re in love with her,” he says, and yet his mind is still trying to understand it.

“Yeh,” Spike says then takes another drag.

“Spike, if you’ve got another sick obsession with…”

Angered Spike storms toward Angel dropping his cigarette along the way; it bounces in the grass sending sparks of orange into the night. He grabs Angel by the collar sufficiently silencing him.

“S’not an obsession, I’d give anything for ‘er, for the both of them, and I’ll kill anything that comes between me and protecting them, including you.” Spike lets go of Angel’s collar and pushes him back a step.

Angel quickly straightens and steps back up to get in Spike’s face. “And I’m just supposed to believe that this is the real deal, you don’t have a soul Spike, you can’t…”

“I don’t give a piss what you think,” Spike says jabbing his finger into Angel’s chest, “an I’m tired of you telling me what I can an’ can’t do, heard enough of your whining over the past hundred years. I love her, you can believe it or don’t but get in my way an’ were gonna have it out.”

For a moment blue eyes meet brown and stare with intensity. Both vampires stand still as statues and then Angel drops his gaze and turns back toward the house. He’s not entirely sure why, but for a moment Darla’s face flashes into his mind. Darla and her willingness even as a soulless demon to give up her life for that of her child’s, Darla who was worse than William ever was, worse than himself at times and even she was capable of love. Darla who told him that the only good thing they ever did together was to make that child. Angel knows how Connor has changed him and even if he doesn’t trust Spike he can maybe accept that it’s possible that he’s changed, maybe.

Darla thought the only way she could love her baby was to feel his soul inside of her, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she really did just love him. Maybe that’s how it is for Spike. Angel doesn’t know, but if there’s one thing Angel does know it’s that he’s not his soul. He’s the man who’s responsible for every man woman and child that Angelus slaughtered. He and Angelus are one in the same; the soul didn't make him a good man. His soul showed him how to be a good man. Just before Angel walks back through the door into the house he wonders if maybe Spike was just a better man to begin with.

--

It’s late in the day when Buffy finally wakes. She’s glad for this morning to have come without any of the sickness that’s plagued her in the past. Now the only thing to turn her stomach is the thought of confronting her ex once again and the words he may have planned to say to her because of her choices. Slowly she gets out of bed and makes her way into the hall. Already she can tell that the house is near empty. Both her sister and best friend’s bedroom doors stand ajar, their rooms empty, and there is a lack of sound in the house. No voices chattering over breakfast or high pitched squeals coming from the bathroom as someone discovers that they’ve run out of hot water once again. Buffy isn’t quite sure what time it is, but if everyone is gone then it must be later then she thought.

Slowly the Slayer makes her way down the stairs, she glances into the living room to see Angel still asleep on the sofa bed, but he’s there alone so she turns and heads through the dining room into the kitchen where she finds Cordelia warming a bottle. Baby Connor rests in his carrier atop the island counter and she smiles at her as she enters the room.

“Well if it isn’t our favorite little pregnant Slayer,” Cordelia greets and Buffy smiles wanly.

“Everyone else gone?” Buffy asks as she sits down at the island.

“Yeah, Willow and her… friend left about an hour ago to go to the Magic store or whatever, your sis dashed out of here early mumbling something about a science project… just me and the big guy here now, well and the little guy of course.” Cordy takes the bottle and tests the temperature of the milk.

“Gotta say Cordy… never thought I’d see you being so…”

“Maternal, yeah no kidding right?” Cordy picks Connor up and holds him in her arms. As Buffy looks on at her high school friend appearing so motherly she feels all warm and fuzzy on the inside. “Things change though,” Cordelia continues as she begins to feed the tiny child, “and this just feels right… helping Angel and taking care of this little guy, like it’s where I’m supposed to be ya know.”

Buffy nods.

“So, how long have you been banging the evil dead?”

Buffy’s eyes snap up, and yet with all that Cordelia has seemed to have grown she still holds on to that ability to be completely tactless.

“We’re not… it was just… a thing… it’s over.”

Cordy arches her eyebrows as if to say that she’s not so sure about that.

“Mmmhmm… so… He’s really doing good? Big bad Spike, slayer of Slayers and torturer via hot pokers Spike?”

“Yeah, he really is… I mean, his motives may not be so pure, but he helps.”

“Well… like I said… things change.”

--

Angel had slept all through the day. For this Buffy was glad, she hadn’t been ready to confront him again. After eating and showering and running a few errands in town Buffy found that the day disappeared faster then she thought it would. Now just after sunset all the Scoobies, plus Angel and Cordelia who holds baby Connor in her arms are gathered around the round table at the Magic box.

Anya still guards her post behind the cash register as the shop still has a few more hours yet before it closes and she eyes up Cordelia who sits beside Buffy. The ex-demon looks at her with speculative eyes remembering when the brunette had come to her to cast vengeance upon Xander. Mostly though she just remembers that she’s his ex and despite past vengeance she feels like she has to keep her eye out for anyone that dares threaten to take Xander from her. Her fiancé respectfully hover’s nearby as he leans against the counter and stands with a protective stance both for his fiancé but also secretively for Buffy as well. Dawn sits on the steps that lead up to the restricted section and the Witches rummage through books beside Buffy at the table.

“Okay, I think to get started it’d be best to know what you and Wesley know about Connor and then from there we can connect the pieces,” Willow says.

“All we know is that this little guy here,” Cordelia says gesturing down to Connor who sleeps peacefully in her arms, “is supposed to be a part of this tro thinger.”

“Tro-Clan,” Angel corrects and steps forward to stand directly behind Cordelia.

“Right, I read that… um,” Willow begins. “The Tro-Clan is a confluence of events that leads to the purification… or possibly the ruin of mankind; Giles was a little sketchy on that part of his translation.” Willow’s brow creases as she tries to make sense of what she’s read.

“So basically it involves all of us and other horrible things we don’t know about,” Cordy adds.

“And Connor and Buffy’s baby are supposed to stop these horrible events?” Dawn asks.

“W-were not sure,” Tara admits. “The scrolls says purification or possibly ruin, we don’t even know which.”

Buffy’s features become anxious and she protectively places her hands across her belly.

“Whoa, wait a second,” Xander says, “I thought we concluded that the kiddies had souls and thus were of the good, now were thinking they might be demon-y bundles of destruction?”

“They do… have souls,” Willow says, “but we just… we just don’t know enough.”

“Then we need to find out more,” Buffy insists.

“The scrolls are very hard to translate,” Angel says.

“So really we know nothing,” Anya says curtly. “I mean soul or no soul these little kiddies could be evil as evil can be and bring about the end of the world.”

“I know,” Buffy says speaking up with a strong voice. “I know, we may not have all the details but I know my baby is good.”

For a moment everyone is silent. Buffy’s eyes meet Angels and a moment of understanding passes between them. It’s a moment shared as parents and understanding that the children are worth everything. That they will risk everything to protect them.





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