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Chapter 5: Choices

Two blocks down and one cemetery over from Spike's crypt Buffy is walking with the sun at her back. She follows her shadow and weaves between the headstones toward her destination. Tears are running down her face creating rivers in her makeup. She doesn’t wipe them away, doesn’t even blink as her vision is blurred by a lens of water. One foot in front of the other, arms crossed tightly across her middle. Then she stops. Her shadow lands on a headstone just before her. Her knees give out and she falls to the ground. Kneeling in the wet grass Buffy begins to cry looking on at the final resting place of Joyce Summers. She traces the letters in the stone with her fingers and takes a deep breath. For the first time since being back she feels flooded with emotion. Not just the feeling of everyday pain, or the recurring feeling of pleasure she’s experienced with Spike, but a full rainbow array of emotions.

“Mommy,” she mumbles. “I really wish you were here, I don’t know how to make these choices.” She sits back and runs her fingers through her hair. “You were always the one that knew how to make the right decisions; you knew how to be a mom.” A breeze rushes by and Buffy’s hair flutters in the wind. “You were a good mom.” Another breath and her tears seem to ebb a little. “I love you mom.” For the first time since her return Buffy silently wishes her mom was there with her instead of wishing she was back where her mom is.

--

After hours of wandering around Sunnydale Buffy returns home. She’d walked through every one of the thirteen graveyards within the city limit while her mind raced with thoughts of her current predicament. Her thoughts raced with choices that now lie ahead for her to make. Abortion, one of her choices, her first choice, although at the time she wouldn’t have used that word to describe what she wanted to do. At the time she didn’t think of the thing growing within her as a baby; but now she does. Now, at the age of twenty Buffy is thinking about how her life will change if she has this baby, this tiny creature within her with a beating heart, with a soul.

She cried for some time on her walk. Silent tears rolled down her face as she meandered through town. Being a mother was never something she thought would be in her cards, something she never even thought about wanting because it would never happen for her. Slayers didn’t have friends, didn’t go to college, didn’t have babies, didn’t live past sixteen. But she’s already proven many of those points wrong and now as she’s presented with another card that she never thought she’d hold in her deck, Buffy doesn’t know what to do. Could she raise this child? Could she be its mother? A part of her screams yes, a part of her is yelling that this tiny person gives her a reason to live, but she doesn’t know.

Slayers tend to have very short lives, and she knows this from experience, she could end up dying before she even gave birth, before her baby turned one, before he turned five or ten or graduated from high school. Would it be right to have this baby and put it through the pain of her death? And what about its father, could she raise it alone? But Buffy knows how terrible it feels to wonder just what one’s father thinks of them when they’re never around. She knows how it feels to feel unwanted. But how could she ever let Spike be a part of her baby’s life… of his baby’s life. And what would her friends think if they knew; Buffy feels nauseous just thinking about how they would look at her…

“Buffy?” Willow calls from the living room and despite the part of her that wants to just run up the stairs and hide for the rest of her life Buffy peers into the living room to see Willow and Tara sitting on the couch. Buffy’s just glad that Dawn isn’t there beside them. “We um… we just…” Willow looks to Tara for support unable to find the right words. Buffy’s eyes flutter down to stare at her toes.

“We j-just want you to know,” Tara says, “that we support you, whether you decide to keep it or not.” Buffy’s eyes dart up to meet Tara’s. “A-and if you don’t want to talk about it that’s okay… o-or if you do.”

“We just want you to know we’re here for you,” Willow adds and Buffy nods. She feels tears welling in her eyes. She can tell that their feelings are sincere and their words are possibly the first things they’ve said to her that are truly about her and not their own guilt ridden consciousness.

“Did you… did you tell Dawn?” Buffy asks with a nervous tremble in her voice.

“No,” Willow replies, “we thought… we weren’t sure…” Buffy nods knowing what Willow is trying to say.

“Thanks.”

--

Buffy skipped patrol, she spent a zombie like hour with Dawn wearing a sweatshirt to cover her baby-bump and watched a re-run of Friends. Then she shed a few more tears in the shower before throwing on her pajamas and crawling into bed. Now she stares blankly at the ceiling. Buffy rests her hands on her stomach and wonders just how long it’ll take before she can feel him kick. She knows she can’t be more than a month along, but Willow’s spell sped her up to somewhere closer to three. She wonders then if things will continue to move at a sped-up pace or if it was just a onetime thing making the pregnancy visible to reveal her condition. Buffy shakes her head. She doesn’t want to let herself get carried away with fantasies. After all she’s yet to come to a decision about whether or not she’ll keep this baby. On one side keeping it seems to be everything she wants at the moment, the only thing she wants, but to act on want alone can be wrong and she knows she needs to do what’s right.

Buffy closes her eyes and tries to push her thoughts away, she’ll deal with it in the morning; but just then there is a tapping at her window. The pointed and repetitive sound causes her eyes to burst open and she sits up in bed just in time to see Spike lifting the pane open and step into her room.

“What do you want?” Buffy asks staring at the vampire with an annoyed glance. She expects Spike to retort in the same manner, but he doesn’t. Spike is quiet for a moment, and still as he stands in the moonlight before her window. Then he looks up at her almost bashful, his skin appears white as snow and his hair seems to glow a little in the cool moonlight. He isn’t here for what Buffy had assumed he was.

“I jus’…” A moment passes where Spike gathers his thoughts, thoughts that are the furthest thing from shagging the Slayer. “I couldn’t let you make a decision about…” Spike gestures toward her stomach, “you know, without telling you how I feel; I know it’s not gonna make a bloody difference in what you decide to do, but I just wanted you to know… I want you to keep it.” Buffy is silent and a moment of calm passes between them, then Spike moves closer to the bed. He seems twitchy, as if he wants to sit down beside her but thinks better of it.

“I wanna do this with you,” he says and Buffy’s eyes fill with liquid. “I know that’s probably the last thing you want, but God Buffy… I gave up a lot of things becoming a vampire, and most of which I never gave a toss about, others I never thought I would, an’ hearing you say that… I just want you to know that if you go through with this I’ll be there however you’d want me.” Buffy says nothing, but a single tear falls down her face and she looks away from him. Spike nods. “So, that’s it… I’ll let you get your rest,” he says and exits through her window closing it once he’s on the other side.

Buffy lies back down hoping that sleep will untie the twisted bundle of raw emotions that have knotted in her chest.

--

“Sure you don’t wanna come to the Magic Box today?” Xander asks standing in Buffy’s doorway. Dawn is waiting for him in the car.

“Yeah, I just need the day to myself to think,” Buffy replies and Xander nods.

“We all, uh… made kinda a pact not to, you know, push you on this whole thing, I know you’ll tell me when you get it all sorted out, I just… I’m here ya know, I’m totally un-judgmental guy.” His words are so honest and his face so sincere that for a moment Buffy thinks he really means it. But, she knows if he were to hear the truth that his words now would mean nothing; un-judgmental guy would go out the window and be replaced by guy-who-stakes-Spike.

“I know Xand, and thanks… it helps, knowing that you guys support me, I just need to figure this all out for myself first.” Xander smiles and then nods. The car horn is heard and Xander knows that if he doesn’t hurry up that he’ll have the wrath of Dawn to deal with soon. “I should…”

“Go before Dawn starts giving herself driving lessons,” Buffy says and Xander leaves giving her a hug as he does.

“Just so you know, I think I’d kinda like being uncle Xander,” he says turning back to face her when he reaches the sidewalk then he turns back to the car and gets in to take Dawn to school.

Buffy watches them drive off from the front porch steps then walks down to the mailbox to get the mail and heads back inside. She walks into the kitchen sifting through the bills and junk mail, sighing for the mass of unwanted and unnecessary printed paper she holds in her hands. Then Buffy stops. Her hand grazes across the front of one envelope in particular. The UC Sunnydale stamp resides on the corner of the envelope and the word FAFSA is printed below it. She sets the other envelopes down and goes about opening the one that will tell her if furthering her education is in her financial cards.

She pulls the letter out and for a moment freezes, unable to read what it says. Eventually though she unfolds the letter and her eyes go wide. Looking at the numbers on the page Buffy finds that she has more than enough to go back to school. Apparently her circumstances have qualified her for a hefty amount of cash in grants, which she does not have to pay back. A large grin crosses Buffy’s face. This money will cover tuition and all of her household expenses for the rest of her college career and she couldn’t be more ecstatic. She just has to get through the summer till the fall semester starts and while things will be tight she knows she can do it.

Buffy sets the letter down on the counter and thinks for a moment that maybe she can have the things that she thought for so long would never be a part of her life.





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