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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hi All, I deserve all the bad looks but I wasn't totally happy with this chapter this weekend, so I took a few extra days. It's a good long one, a little less action-y than I've been giving you but we're coming to a lull as Spike and Buffy gather their resources to strike back.

Some notes on timeline: I'm not sure if I've made this clear before but Angel sort of keep their timeline intact, when The Project took Buffy they faked her death and Willow went to tell them that she was dead and Angel went to go brood in Sri Lanka. Wes also left to deal with Ravi. So just rework the timeline a little bit and season one proceeds as normal with a few seasonal changes. Except that LA doesn't have any season so that works out well!
Chapter Fourteen – The Closer you are to Danger the Further You are from Harm

Buffy stretched. Wesley had already gone and the other sleep nests had been gathered up. She threw off the covers scanning the room and nearly fell off the couch.

“Sleep well?” Spike asked.

He was perched at the junction of the L couch.

“Gaahhhh!”

“Glad to see those slayer reflexes are intact.” He said with a smirk.

Buffy eyed him carefully and bit back the almost automatic “stalker much.” retort. Last night’s Spike had made her wary but there were no traces of his fury of last night. He did, however, look odd, somehow. Everything about his posture was normal, he sprawled out on the couch like he was carefree and maybe even a little bored; but with something else. The word guarded came unbidden to her mind. That surprised her. She had made her amends long ago with the fact that she would never be able to lie to Spike convincingly, but she never really thought that all the time they had spent together meant she could read him too.

“Spike--”

“Nightmare?”

She stopped and changed gears. “I think I’ve managed to shake the nightmare bug. You?”

Spike shook his head.

Buffy was about to say something about small victories until something occurred to her. She felt her stomach drop to the floor, every muscle in her body constricted in panic. Spike’s laid back posture dissolved in an instant.

“Slayer?”

“I had a nightmare and then I got up and then nothing. I thought that I just willed it away, you know? but that dream I had, it felt different, less dreamy like I was really there. It must have been a slayer dream.” She said grimly. “I thought I was doing better! I thought I was doing the slayer thing! Guh, Kicking the nightmare problem with resolve face? what an idiot. I need to write this down so we can use it.” She immediately began looking around for a pen and paper.

Spike exhaled sharply. Her attention turned to him but instead of the concern she was expecting, Spike just looked irritated.
“Why are you so determined to be upset about this?”

Buffy looked confused. “What?”

“You’re blocking out any possibility that the sprog could be a good thing. You’re just interested in it being a monster that you’ll have to slay or something evil and I think you’re just upset that it my child in there and not your precious Angel’s.”

She froze.

She immediately felt guilty. That soulless comment must have cut deep. Spike wasn’t looking at her, and the Spike swaggering posture was back but it was much clearer to her now that this was something Spike thought about often. Angel was his mentor once and he measured himself on that measuring stick, she realised suddenly that he often found himself wanting.

Fuck, this was going to require some delicate handling and she was fumbly Buffy around this kind of thing at the best of times. She could really only tell him the truth and hope he had his stupidly astute Spike instincts on and that they weren’t dulled by his insecurities.

She would be lying if she told him that the thought hadn't occurred to her. What would have happened if the vampire that Genesis had chosen had been Angel and not Spike? There had been times when they were holed up in Paddington when she wondered what it would have been like if it had been his child was carrying. She would be just as worried about the chest-burst factor. But something told her Angel would not have been the partner she needed to get through this he would brood endlessly and let her sink into her own hole of depression or he would have dragged her back in there half cocked and guns blazing and they would both be under a fog of drugs in that facility for who knows how long. The last time something really traumatic happened to Angel he tried to off himself and the time before that he lived in the sewers for 90 years. Angel would need Buffy to have it together. Spike had not.

He didn’t really need her at all, he was the one who had all the contacts and the survival instincts. He took her with him because-because honestly she wasn’t really sure. He was on the verge of saying so last night but part of her didn’t want him to. It was like there was a place in her head she couldn’t go. Like a button that she could put her finger on but her subconscious told her that on no uncertain terms she was not supposed to.

Spike took her silence badly.

“That’s it isn’t it. You just want to be devastated about this because it isn’t normal. You want it to be evil so that you can leave it behind and go be bright and shiny Buffy just like everyone else. Tell you what slayer, you’re not the only one in this.” He said, that quiet rage was starting up again. “And you know what a half-slayer hybrid looks like and she has your soddin’ nose and I hope that girl never has to hear you on and on about this. Because she worships you and it would hurt her and sometimes a bad dream is just a bad dream!”

Spike got up and was about to stomp away but Buffy knew she had to do something.

“You idiot!” she exclaimed. “This isn’t about you! I know I’m not the only one in this and I know that Alex is the best case scenario! I just-I just I don’t want this because I don’t want to have the kid that they created!” she said it without really thinking about it but as soon as she said it she knew that it was true. “Alex was a miracle because her parents—the other us—loved each other or something like that. She was a gift. This one isn’t.” She paused realizing how awful she sounded taking about an unborn child but she had to press on. “You aren’t the only one who’s always wanted a family, I just—” Her voice broke a little. “They ruined this for me too. They took everything and shit all over it and I don’t want to think of that every time I look at it. I don’t want to hate a baby just because of how it was made.”

Spike had stopped and turned around. The posturing was gone he was looking at her hard now, determining if she was telling him the truth.

“I was raped, Spike.” She said. This was the first time she had never really said it out loud. She was surprised and pleased that she didn’t feel the prickle of tears in her eyes. In the weeks they were alone in Paddington, even while patrolling they talked about many things but they both avoided talking about what happened to them. It was unspoken and absolute. They talked about the aftermath, they talked about coping sometimes but they never talked about it. Doing it now felt a lot like the first time Buffy had ever said the F word. Or the first time she dropped the slayer-bomb in front of her mom. “and so were you. And now we have to deal with what we hope is a child and-”

“It’s human, I keep tellin’ you. I can hear the heartbeat.”

Buffy looked away. She desperately wanted to believe him but everything bad had happened and it was very hard to think something good could come of this.

“I-I-I- don’t think mortal enemies will make good parents.”

He said nothing at first. This was his specialty. He could always get passed every barrier she tried to put up to see right to her; especially in situations like this, complicated ones when she was afraid to say what she was feeling especially when she was sure of what she was supposed to be feeling.

“We’re not mortal enemies pet,” he said finally. “and you and I both know we haven’t been for a while.” She didn’t have to say anything. “what they did, we’ll make them pay for it. But you aren’t going to hate this kid because of them. I know you don’t and I know you think you will but—” he stopped suddenly.

“But what?”

“Can I try something?” he asked hesitantly.

Buffy wasn’t really sure why but her mind went right back into panic mode. He plopped down beside her before she could say anything and her heart started to hammer in her chest. She was mindful that Spike could hear it and it took every trick Giles had ever taught her to make it stop.

“Lie back.” He said.

Buffy’s tummy was quickly filling with butterflies. What on earth was going on? he couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. Her mind suddenly jumped back to that episode a year and a million ago when she and Spike had thought they were engaged. He wasn’t going to do that now was her? They had been yelling at each other a few seconds ago. “Spike what are you—”

But before she could say anything he splayed his fingers on her belly and gently pushed her back. His hand was cool and callused and her control on her heartbeat slipped. This was getting more intimate than she was comfortable with but she couldn’t make herself make him stop. He leaned towards her and She felt her lips go dry and her eyes flutter closed even while she was unsure of if she wanted him to move forward but then she felt the pressure on her tummy and she realized he had pressed his ear to her abdomen and was tapping lightly on it. She wanted to ask him what he was doing when she realized that he was tapping in rhythm. It was the baby’s heartbeat.

Spike was having a difficult time as well. He was doing his very best not to drown in a cloud of Buffy sensations. He could hear her breathing slow as she tried to keep her heartbeat in check, but her eyes betrayed her, they were usually green but right now they were black. Spike was fighting everything in him that wanted to take her right there, he knew she was willing, he was currently trying to not to breathe because if he could smell it there was no telling what he would do. His mind was already going a mile a minute forming clumsy verses that even he knew were bloody awful. He forced himself to concentrate on the low whirring noise. The light pitter patter that was the heartbeat of his child.

“I thought if you could hear what I heard, maybe it would put the Alien-chest burster theory to bed.” His voice was a low rumble. He had hoped he would be able to keep it together better than this was but he couldn’t help it, he had to take a breath to talk and she smelled like vanilla but also blood and sweat. The latter smells spoke straight to his demon.

Buffy felt all her emotions swell. Relief that she could finally let go of the monster theory, and the powerful gush of love that she felt for it told her that she would have no trouble feeling for this baby in the way that it deserved. She knew it was irrational but it sort of suddenly hit her that part of her was upset about the negative test because she had always wanted to have a family eventually and she maybe had lost her chance. But now she had what felt like concrete proof of her child. Her child with Spike. Spike who was purring a little and that was making her tingly and suddenly even her subconscious couldn’t stop her from asking him what he had meant last night when he said that she knew why he did everything he did for her.

“Spike,”

He could hear it in her voice. She was going to ask him something that he couldn’t help but answer truthfully and he knew that it would change everything and not necessarily for the better. He wanted more than anything for her not to ask him about that. He scrambled for something to say, anything to stop her.

He sprang up suddenly cutting her off.

“Buffy,” he said wielding her name like a weapon. “I can’t think of someone who would make a better mum.”

He looked a little like she was snapping out of a daze.

“Sides,” he continued. “The way I see it, the sprog’ll be one hell of a fighter. You haven’t seen the minion in action, luv. She’s a force to be reckoned with; took down two buggers as big as grappler demons and the sprog will probably be the same. We’ll train it and fight beside it and you won’t have to worry about it bein’ so breakable.” He stood with a sigh needing to put some space between them. “Not after we’re done with it.” He quickly found how footing, looking for more to say just to keep her distracted. “And you and I both know who’s fault it is that we’re going through this, and we’re going to find them and kill them with our hands.”

Buffy actually smiled a little. She had never thought that the thought of killing someone, a human someone with her bare hands would be something to smile about. But she was not aware of what humans could be capable of.

“I knew I was going to keep it.” She said softly. “that’s why I was worried. I couldn’t kill it but I wasn’t sure if I could keep myself from hating it. I’m so sorry about yesterday, Spike, I was doing the freaked-out-Buffy thing where I know I’m saying something that will hurt but I’m not so much with the caring.”

Spike smirked and she was worried he would turn back into closed off guarded Spike again.

“The soul-less jab was just lazy, pet.” He said and Buffy felt like she had jettisoned 10 lbs. “I was all hurt that that was the best you could come up with."

“How about fangless wonder?”

“Cautionary tale.” Spike shot back easily.

“Pathetic excuse for a vampire.”

“Slayer-PSA.”

“Flaccid-fangs!”

“Dropout!”

Buffy gasped and threw punch Spike caught almost lazily. She tried again and then blocked one of his jabs. Neither was trying too hard, Spike was still too hurt to fight properly.

“Billy-Idol rip-off!”

“Hey!” Spike replied affronted, “I’ll have you know that that pillock stole his look from me, you cheerleader wannabe!”

“I was a cheerleader in LA!” Buffy thundered back. “And fiesta queen! It’s not my fault a witch nearly killed off half the Sunnydale squad and cursed me!”

“What rot!” he blocked a roundhouse. “You just want to be just like that Chase-bitch. Too bad you don’t pull of the hair.”

“YOU SAID YOU LIKED MY HAIR!” Buffy thundered. Suddenly the playful sparring turned into something more serious.

Unbeknownst to them, Wes, Raj and Alex had arrived with breakfast pastries, coffee and freshly stolen blood for Spike.

“Think they’ve made up?” Alex whispered.

Raj and Wes just shrugged.

Back in their own world Buffy was reveling in the thrill she always felt when she was fighting with Spike. Trading insults was proving to be fun as well, but now that she had opened that door she couldn’t quite close it all the way.

“Spike what did you mean last night when you said I knew why you were helping me?”

Spike was caught so off guard that she caught him right in the face. his hands flew to his nose and he growled loudly.

Alex chose this moment to intervene.

“Pastries!” she said a hair too loudly. “Hot and fresh! Much like myself and this blood we got off a lax health security employee. Who says we suck at the spy thing?”

Buffy whirled around in surprise and Alex shoved a coffee into her hand. She reached out to pull Spike to his feet and he sent her a grateful look that had nothing to do with her helping him get up.

“I do.” Raj said putting down the other food stuff. “what he did was basically: For the love of God! Look over there!” he yelled pointing and the mimed grabbing a bunch of blood bags.

“A classic for a reason.” Alex replied easily. She turned to Spike. “Should I microwave these? We don’t have mugs but I could put it in a cactus.”

She held up plastic cactus cups that were probably meant to hold Margaritas. Spike shook his head and took a blood bag from Alex. He drank it like a juice box.

“Someone has spirits that are high.” Buffy observed. She took a cinnamon bun and a sip of coffee. The look she shot Spike said she had not closed the subject but the vampire had turned away from her.

“What would be the sweet, sweet smell of freedom.” Alex said, she raised her cup and Buffy noticed the telltale green straw for the first time. “And coffee that should legally have to be called a milkshake. No joke, this has cookies in it.”

“Wow.” Buffy said. “ has Starbucks stopped giving people diabetic comas in the future place?”

Alex shook her head. “No they’re around but the specialty drinks are sort of a no-no. The barista will look at you all judgy if you don’t order an organic, free-trade, pour-over and then drink it black.”

Raj choked on his own coffee. Buffy suspected that his coffee order was close to the concoction Alex had just described.

“Thank heavens you were saved from the hell dimension.” she said with a grin.

They had all taken places around the couch, Buffy noticed a wall mounted tv for the first time and flicked around looking for an English channel. Alex was explaining how she also had to bring her own mug because while paper cups were still around the plastic ones like the one she was holding were gone.

“Have you two been just quizzin’ the poor girl all morning?” Spike demanded. Raj and Wesley who had both been riveted to her descriptions of her world both looked away suddenly guilty.

“Watchers.” Spike said with a roll of his eyes. “I bet you didn’t get any of the important stuff like who won the world cup or the kentucky derby and winning lottery numbers and what not hAven’t any of you seen Back to the Future?”

“Ohh!” Buffy tore herself away from CNN and turned to Alex excitedly. “What colour Gatorade will flavorize next?”

“Orange.” Alex replied stoically.

Buffy shot her a dirty look.

“Actually, we’ve come to the conclusions that since Alex is technically from another dimension the same numbers and trends do not necessarily apply.” Wesley said. he looked too excited about this for comfort. “In her world the events of the last few months didn’t transpire and the world went in a different direction.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Buffy replied before he could go on as he clearly wanted to. “I get it. Parallel and not necessarily future-times. I went to high school on a hellmouth. Do you think I’ve never met someone from another dimension?”

“Er, perhaps, but you’ve never underwent the process yourself.”

This launched them into a now familiar argument about who had more exposure to the forces of evil. Raj shot Spike a bemused look.

“You ever been to another dimension?” he asked.

Spike shook his head as he finished the second bag and belched loudly. “No but came close to being sucked into a hell dimension once. It involved big rock.”

“I heard about Acathla.” Raj said, he took advantage of the moment Buffy had to put down the remote to take a bite of cinnamon bun to snatch it and switch the channel to the BBC. He ignored Buffy’s protest and continued his conversation with Spike. “You were involved?”

“Yeah, slayer and I saved the world.” He said with a grin and a nostalgic chuckle then he seemed to remember that he was meant to be evil and added. “Mostly her, I was just in it for myself. And Dru.”

“Spike,” Alex observed. “You have like zero evil cred, I hope you know that.”

“Oi! You watch your mouth, Minion.” He said.

“I’m not your minion!”

“I just made you break laws to bring me blood.” Spike said tucking into the third blood bag. “I think that does wonders for my rep.”

On the other side of the couch, Wesley and Buffy were still trying to prove one evil fighting force better than the other. They had moved over to the scope of their endeavors. Their argument was much more interesting than what the BBC reporter was droning on about.

“It’s a hellmouth, Wes,” Buffy said. “You were there, the baddie I had to deal with everyday they were not of your garden variety. Our mayor was a full-pure demon. I’m talking humongous snake!”

“We are dealing with lawyers.”

“It ate principal Snyder!”

“Then how bad could it have possibly been?”

“Fascinating as both of you are being,” Raj cut in suddenly. “We are currently dealing with mad scientist-surgeons who are trying to make an army of super humans. So maybe the past performance could be used a little more constructively?”

“Took care of one of those last year.” Buffy said triumphantly. “Buffy 1, US Army 0.”

Everyone stared at her.

“You’ve dealt with something like Genesis before?”

Buffy shrugged. “The initiative weren’t so interested in the mystical, more physical. How to build better soldier only literally. They weren’t quite as subtle as Genesis, strictly a slash and grab scenario. It was an army project that went a little psycho but we took them down. They were also burned out and the army promised to leave the hellmouth to the professionals.”

“You think Genesis may have taken Adam’s notes, though?” Alex asked.

Both Buffy and Spike looked at her wondering where she had found that name. Spike hastily glanced at Buffy hoping she had put that nasty business of Adam’s behind her. Buffy wasn’t paying him any attention.

“Gramps is iffy with the hiding of the watcher diaries.” she said with a little shrug. She missed the small amused smiles Buffy and Spike exchanged.

“You think that they are being funded by a government entity?” Raj asked he had gone a little green at the prospect.

“Perhaps not; but their resources are more plentiful than we originally thought,” Wesley replied also looking worried. “The helicopters were an unwelcome surprise. I had thought they would at least try and maintain the unspoken agreement we all have to keep the public at large ignorant of the mystical forces.”

“I actually was sure it was the watcher’s council.” Buffy said. “who else would have access to me and slayer data.”

Raj and Wesley both chuckled darkly.

“It would take years for the council to be able to put together something of this magnitude.”

“And the other argument of the thing is how unprecedented it is to try and make a vampire hybrid also comes to mind.” Raj piped up. “You would be surprised how compelling the argument of ‘it’s never happened before’ or ‘it’s just not done’ can be in a council meeting.”

There was a sudden, shrill chirrup of a cell phone. Everyone was instantly on edge. Every other time something like that had happened they had to haul as to a new place to out run the Project. But Wesley made calming gestured and showed them him flip phone. Apparently he had worked out how to use the various plugs situated around the couch--probably for blacklights or other party favors--and his phone was now fully charged.

“Oh, dear,” he said flicking through the messages.

“Problem in Angel-town?” Spike asked lazily.

Wesley nodded. “Angel is at present at a retreat in Sri Lanka.” he said distractedly the messages were becoming more and more disturbing. “He went there after we got news of Buffy’s demise.” he glanced up guiltily at the slayer and then went back to his phone. “He’s not returned, but Cordelia’s visions have been getting more and more violent and her reactions more and more severe.” Buffy could hear a small tinny voice coming from the phone saying “...First Angel and now you, This isn’t good for the crew, English. I’m this close to recruiting phantom Dennis. You need to be back here now--there was a horrible screaming in the background--Cordy says to bring her some Toblerone.” Wesley grimaced. “It sounds like I’m needed at home.”

There was a short silence. They had been operating on a short term plan for so long, get to the package, get to the station, shake off the goons, get to Prague that no one really wanted to talk about the longer term goals.

“There is a leak in the council ranks.” Raj said finally breaking the tension. “that we know, so Genesis is at least getting their information from the diaries in the council’s possession, especially the ones from Xin Ming and Nikki Wood’s watcher about Spike. I think our first move should be to find out who that is.”

“You plan on going back?” Buffy said incredulously. “won’t they be suspicious of you having just” she made a waggly motion with her hands. “Disappeared?”

Raj shook his head.

“I paid a kid in japan to play my World of Warcraft account since I’ve been gone.” Raj said. “Which was more for Genesis than the Council since I’m on bereavement leave. No one there takes me seriously anyway, I’m an IT guy. I spend all day scanning books and making databases. I might as well be an demon minion for all they care since they consider progress to be ranked somewhere around the Beast and the abomination on the list of things to be worried about.”

Raj’s mention of the Beast and the Abomination made Buffy pause for a moment, it was just a slight hitch of her breath that no one noticed.

“You would just go back to your house like nothing ever happened?” Alex asked.

Raj thought for a moment and then nodded grimly. “I have to.” he said. “We need an in at the Watcher’s council and if I’m in London I can get a better hold of my friend in the Genesis organization.”

“Impressive covert network for an IT guy.” Buffy observed.

Raj flushed. “Putting Simon in there was Dad’s idea. This whole thing was on his radar long before it was on mine.” he said quietly. “I sort of suggested a friend without thinking. We’re lucky he turned out to be quite up to the job.”

“Looks like we’re heading back to England.” Spike said.

“Back there? are you fucking mad?” Buffy demanded. “We can’t go back there! Genesis keeps finding us there!”

“what did you think we were going to do, pet?”

“I don’t know split up?”

“We’re going to need to get you checks-up and the suchlike, yeah?”

“They have doctors here!” she replied. her panic was evident in her voice and she did her best to tamp down on it. Even saying it she knew they couldn’t stay here, the apartment was not made for human habitation, the party time lay out made it a good place to crash but there was no stove, very little kitchen and the bathroom was improvised. The whole apartment looked much shabbier by the light of day. Still, they were off the grid and hard to find, and while she knew that was her priority now 9 months was a long time to live showering by pouring water from a basin over herself with a large ladle. She saw the grim finality on everyone else’s face. “but I thought the Paddington place was burned.”

“I have another place.” Spike said finally. “I’m not sure how nice it will be but it will be more comfortable than this.” he paused and then said more gently, “Pet, this is the first move. We can’t hide out forever and a little while ago you were all gunning to make them into shoes. Well, this is it. we figure out the scope of their operations and strike.”

“Uh, not to be all voice-of reason,” Alex spoke up. “but Spike’s got a little pesky chip in his head and Buffy’s pregnant. Maybe The Great Genesis Caper has to take a backseat for a little while?”

“See? laying low makes sense.” Buffy said.

“Pet,” Spike said. “They’ve been readin’ up on me so they know that Prague is a place I know well and they might find Thora. They won’t be expectin’ us back in England. Not right in their front garden.”

“But the chip?”

“Actually I have some contacts that I can mobilize in Los Angeles.” Wesley said. “And I’d imagine the watcher’s council may have considerable databases on the subject.”

“We would have to be careful about it.” Raj said with a nod. “but I can rustle together some names.”

“And I’d imagine, Alex is going to have to go to school at some point.” the older watcher said carefully.

“Wait, what?” Alex said suddenly. She had been nodding along to what everyone was saying. “No, no, I went to the slayer Academy. I’m all done.”

Wes, Raj and Spike all gave her identical looks that said clearly that she was going to be going to school no matter what she said. She looked at Buffy for back up but the slayer was lost in her own thoughts. She deflated. Spike looked triumphantly at Raj and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

“Winter term has probably already started but I’m sure I can find something.” he said. “Think of it this way, Lex, people would notice a youth out of school. We need to blend in as much as possible.”

Alex didn’t look at him. “I loath you with everything that I am and will make life a living hell for you if you dare put me in some sort of strict, reform all-girls school!”

They each turned to Buffy looking at her expectantly. And the slayer deflated. “So how are we going to get there?”





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