Disclaimer:  I don’t own or profit from BtVS.  It is all owned by Joss Whedon and affiliates.  No copyright infringement intended.

A/N:  Hey guys!  I just want to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review.  It makes a writer’s heart go all pitter-patter.  School has started up, so postings may slow down, but not by too much I think.  I have two more chapters written already and I have a completed outline, so hopefully it won’t be more than two weeks between chapters.  Happy Reading!

Spoilers for Hush

Dawn of a New Age

Chapter Eight

Spike had an ulterior motive in bringing Slim Jims to the Scoobie meeting at the college auditorium.  He maneuvered himself into the seat to the left of Buffy, sending the whelp a truly malicious glare when he tried to hedge in.  The young boy gulped and headed for the second row with his bird.  Buffy was oblivious to the silent male posturing as she settled her bag at her feet, but when he sat she looked up, suspicion clouding her green eyes.  Regardless, of their private relationship, they had little contact in public.  That was something he was dead set on changing.  In furtherance of his agenda, he pulled out one of the Slim Jims he had hidden in the inner pocket of his jacket.  Her eyes lit up as she snatched it from his hand.  He smirked as his theory was confirmed.  The Slayer had a craving for meat.

Spike watched with a small curl to his lips as Buffy tore open the packaging and gobbled her treat.  He noticed most of her friends were appalled by her new eating habits, but he was quite fascinated.  A quick glance at her tight, athletic body told him she probably lived off salad, pizza with the toppings picked off, and caffeine.  Seeing this new ravenous side of her, made his insides twitch.  In a good way.

Spike’s head whipped around as soon as Giles started Camille Saint-Saens Danse Macabre.  The twitch in his insides turned into a sickening vibration.  The first time he heard the orchestra being performed, he was a newly turned vampire on the arm of his beautiful sire.  They sat high in the balcony, Darla and Angelus laughing beside them.  As the music ebbed the Scourge of Europe descended on the audience, their screams ascending in the wake of the music.  As blood splashed on the gold brocade walls of the theater, he and Dru danced a sinuous waltz, her humming the tune under her breath.  As he twirled her around, he closed his eyes and imagined skeletons dancing in a graveyard under a full moon.

Ignoring Giles’ presentation, he shot Buffy a glance from under his lowered lashes.  He wondered what she would say about his memory triggered by a bit of history.  For all intents and purposes he considered it to be a good memory.  He was deep in the embrace of love for his sire and the new dark world she was introducing him too.  For the first time in his life he was strong and powerful.  Dru had yet to show her fickle side, and he was completely enthralled with her and everything she represented.  He was convinced she would give him everything he could ever desire.  But she hadn’t.  Until Buffy.  Until the baby, Spike hadn’t even known what his true desires were. 

He thought it was power to make sure he was never a victim again, to wreck vengeance on those who had taunted and humiliated him for years.  He thought it was desirability to attract women who would have never given him a second glance when he was human.  He knew those desires while substantial were inadequate.  He realized he never wanted something as badly as he wanted this child.  More surprisingly, he wanted Buffy.  Perhaps this was what Dru had nattered on about. 

He came back to Sunnydale, because he couldn’t stop thinking of her.  He thought it was to kill her, but now he wasn’t so sure if that was ever his intention.  He certainly had more than enough chances over the years, but he never followed through.  Now he knew why.  It was obvious their child was a miracle.  The Powers That Be always meant for them to be parents, but what if they meant for them to be more than that?  What if the secrets he kept from his sire, from his own self were rooted in truth?  Maybe the changes he had been going through for the last two years were meant to be.  Maybe Buffy was meant to be. 

From the corner of his eye, he watched Buffy speculatively.  What if she was the one he always dreamed of?  The ambiguous promise of love he craved since before he was a vampire.  The one he thought he found in Dru, but never was completely convinced.  It seemed unlikely, his feelings of lust notwithstanding, but then again fathering a child was about as unlikely as it could get, and yet here he was.  A soon-to-be daddy.

He looked up in time to see Giles’ note for Buffy to patrol.  He went from contemplative to enraged in a nanosecond.  He exploded from his seat in a silent roar that rocked the occupants of the room.  ‘No!’ he mouthed to Giles, ignoring the angry woman next to him.  Buffy grabbed his arm, yanking him around to face her.  ‘No!’ he snarled.  He would be shouting if it were possible.  Buffy responded by slamming him with a two-handed shove to the chest, knocking him back several feet.  She flourished her stake, mouthing ‘Slayer’ with a concise sneer to her pretty, pink lips.

Spike covered the distance between them in a blink, his black duster swirling forward around her ankles at his abrupt halt in front of her.  ‘Mother’ he spat in her face.  The air between them was tense, and everyone held their breath.  A copper tang tainted the air, and Spike looked down to see her stake piercing his chest above his heart.  His eyes traveled back to hers in a long, slow ascent.  Her face was pinched and mean, and he could see no hint of her beauty as she mouthed, ‘vampire’ with a glint of human fang. 

They stood in a frozen tableau, both too angry to relent.  Giles shuffled, and the spell was broken.  Spike whirled away from her, seizing the table where the projector sat and flung the entire setup into the far wall with a loud, nerve shattering crash.  He didn’t look back to see the unrelenting anger on Buffy’s face as he stalked from the room.

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Buffy walked the darkened streets alone.  It wasn’t a new occurrence.  She spent most of her time alone in the shadows.  But it had never been so unbearably silent before.  She couldn’t hum the newest pop hit under her breath as she walked, or taunt the newly risen for her own perverse entertainment.  The oppressive weight of the silence made her feel more alone than she had in her entire life.  Worse, the silence gave her nothing, but time to think.

Outwardly, she projected lethal intensity.  Her small, lithe body was coiled for an attack, her footsteps silent as she stalked her prey.  Her eyes never stopped moving as she searched the shadows for any sign of her quarry.  She was a predator in every sense of the word.  But inwardly, she was a carefully compartmentalized woman.  Her Slayer mind hunted her environment while the rest of her analyzed the events of the last few days.  It wasn’t easy to be analytical.  She was a mass of confusion, all centered on the life she now carried inside her.

As the Slayer, Buffy had always been responsible for the safety of others.  It was what she was.  The Chosen One was the protector of innocents.  It was her, and her alone who stood against the forces of darkness and made sure the light was never overwhelmed.  For the most part the innocents she protected were faceless.  A girl’s tear-streaked aspect as Buffy pulled a vamp off her.  A boy’s boot-quaking terror as he cowered from a demon.  Buffy hardly registered them on the peripheral as they scampered away to leave her to fight alone.  Some innocents weren’t so faceless.  Her friends and family.  Her classmates and professors.  She protected them all.  And while there was a personal sense of duty when it came to guarding them, it wasn’t quite the same as when she thought about her responsibility towards her unborn child.  The thought of losing her baby made her throat tighten up with terror and her stomach clench so hard it was difficult to keep food down. 

Not for the first time Buffy was caught between the dilemma of her personal life and her Slayer responsibilities.  Not patrolling for the last few weeks had engulfed her in guilt, yet it hadn’t been enough to override her fear for her child.  She felt selfish, small, and petty.  Buffy knew people were dying because of her lack of action, yet she chose her own happiness over theirs.  She was choosing her own child over someone else’s.  It was wrong, yet it didn’t seem wrong.  It was instinctual.

Just like her attack on Spike earlier was instinctual.  He was a vampire.  She slayed vampires.  Ergo, slay Spike.  So why couldn’t she?  Even before he was chipped, there was something always holding her back.  Maybe, it was the influence of the Powers That Be.  Those selfish jerks were always messing with her life like she was their personal butt monkey.  It was bad enough being their Chosen One, now she was playing the role of the Virgin Mary.  Just, you know, less virginy.  Buffy stopped in her tracks.  Oh, God.  Was she giving birth to the next Jesus Christ!!  Buffy was stumped on that one for a minute, before deciding it wasn’t possible.  Spike was not even close to being a God, no matter how cocky he was.

Even though Buffy was acutely aware of her surroundings, she nearly came out of her skin when a cadre of demons formed out of the shadows to encircle her.  She dropped down into a fighting stance, her heart beating a rapid tattoo inside her chest.  A darker form appeared in a swirl of black leather, as Spike slipped between the ranks to stand before her.  She wasn’t surprised at the hardened look of anger he shot her, before he shifted purposefully to take a place at her side.  With a dawning sense of awe, she realized the cadre of demons was under Spike’s leadership and they were there to protect her.  Protect her!  More like get in her way!  Hadn’t they got the memo?  She was the Chosen One.  She fought alone and she died alone.  That was the way it had always been.

Buffy frowned and smoothed her hand over her belly at the thought.  Spike caught her movement and he shifted to look at her.  Maybe things should change.  At least for a while.  She met Spike’s intense blue gaze.  Would it be so bad to have someone fight beside her?  Someone to watch her back?  Her eyes flittered to the loose circle of demons around them.  They kept their eyes respectively averted, as if by catching her gaze meant catching one of her stakes to the heart.  Was it so wrong to ask for a little help now and again?  Not that she needed help.  She was the Slayer.  She could dance circles around these chumps.  But maybe, just this once wouldn’t be so bad.

She angled her gaze straight ahead, refusing to look at Spike as she started to walk.  With a flare of his duster he fell in step beside her, the demons spreading out in a search formation around them.  She was struck with the irrational urge to reach out and grasp Spike’s hand.  Instead, she shoved it into her front pocket and kept her other hand wrapped tightly around her stake.  They weren’t a cutesy bootsy couple, and this wasn’t date night.  This was business.  With that in mind, Buffy pushed away all doubt, and called on the instincts of the Slayer as they stalked through the night together.

A gray, leather-clad demon whom seemed vaguely familiar to Buffy appeared out of the night, motioning with a toss of his horns for them to follow.  As one, Buffy and Spike shifted their direction, following the demon.  He led them to the town square were the clock tower rose above the city garden.  They watched as two Gentlemen, a bloody jar in each of their hands entered the building with their minions trailing behind.  Buffy felt a thump in her chest.  She had failed again.  At least two people had died this night, because she had been too slow in finding the Gentlemen’s hideout.

Spike moved with her as they raced across the lawn towards the tower.  As they burst from the shadows, a group of commandos in fatigues entered the courtyard from another direction.  From the corner of her eye she saw Spike’s silent snarl and at a toss of his head all the demons except the horned one cut away from the group in an attempt to draw the humans from the building.  Most of the commandos followed after them as Spike, Buffy and the gray demon raced into the clock tower.  Spike and the demon formed a phalanx around her, engaging the cadaverous monsters before she could get a swing in.  Pissed and frustrated, she feinted back to examine the room.  The main floor was wide open with a set of stairs hugging the far wall.  There were no obvious clues on how to kill the monsters, so she swerved around her ‘bodyguards’ and headed for the stairs.

She could feel someone hot on her heels as she raced up several flights of stairs, but she didn’t look back.  The upstairs was a half loft with no railing to stop people from tumbling down to the main floor.  Buffy didn’t have time to dwell on the lack of safeties for turn of the century architecture, because she was hit from behind as she gained the top of the stairs.  She slammed into the wall with a huff, bowing her body on contact, trying to keep her belly safe.  Her face took the bunt of the damage as she scrapped her cheek along the wooden, roughhewn wall. 

Gathering herself, she shoved off, twirling her axe to take the head off the white-jacketed minion that leapt on her.  Grayish blood spurted across her face as it’s head arched through the air and tumbled to the bottom floor.  Briefly, she imagined it splitting open like a watermelon as it hit the ground.  She giggled at the idea of Spike getting spattered with a face full of minion brains.  Serves him right.  She wiped her face with her forearm as she took in the room with a searching glance.  A masked man in fatigues brushed passed her, bracing his legs as he shot one of the Gentlemen with what seemed to be a bolt of electricity.  The creature convulsed, but didn’t stop it’s gliding advance.

In her sweep, Buffy saw a small table covered in jars and bloody knives.  In the center was the prettily carved box from her dream.  She raced towards it, only to be knocked back into a large coil of rope as thick as her arm.  She held off the ferocious minion, trying to ignore the smear of black goo on its lips as she planted her foot in its chest and kicked it off.  The creature flew through the air, landing on the far side of the room with a crack as it’s spine broke on a support beam.  She scrambled off the rope, racing for the table, but a low wall blocked her.  When she tried to leap over it, she was pinned from behind by something tall, thin, and icily cold.  The Gentleman’s long fingers wrapped around her throat, freezing the blood in her veins, making her feel sluggish. 

She pounded on the wall with her fist to get the attention of the commando who was fighting off another Gentleman.  His mask must have been torn away, because when he turned she recognized Riley, the teacher’s assistant from her psychology class.  She motioned frantically for him to smash the box on the table.  He raced up, and with the butt of his gun he smashed one of the vials.  She rolled her eyes and mimed a box.

The hand at her throat tightened and she was wrenched backwards.  She hit the floor face first, a heavy weight on her back.  Her eyes reflexively squeezed shut at the impact.  When she opened them, she realized she was at the edge of the loft floor, her head hanging over the brink.  Below her she could see Spike whirl around to fight off another opponent.  He dances so beautifully, came the unbidden thought.  The monster had her by the belt, and she could feel it’s cold breath on her nape as it tried to drag her over the edge.  She braced her hands on the floor and reared back, scissoring her legs to throw the weight off her as she flipped over.  The sharp edge of the floor cut across her shoulders, and her long hair hung over the abyss.  She was severally unbalanced as the Gentleman lunged at her, its silver plated teeth snapping like a steel trap at her throat. 

Her hands were fisted in the labels of its fancy smoking jacket, holding him off as she frantically tried to knee him.  It snapped at her and she twisted her face away, avoiding its teeth when she saw something flash from the corner of her eye.  Spike was spiraling up the walls of the clock tower, leaping and climbing with amazing speed and agility.  It’s Batman, she thought, a little drunk off the adrenaline from the fight.  Buffy turned back to the Gentleman, using her hips to try and buck him over her head, but she couldn’t get the leverage she needed without falling off the edge herself.  Suddenly, the monster was gone, hurtling over her and onto the floor below.  Then Spike eclipsed her view, his face grim and bloody, his electric blue eyes glittering with fury.

She broke away and rolled onto her knees just as a tingle crept into her mouth and down her throat.  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and screamed with all her might.  When the sound died away she opened her eyes.  The Gentlemen and their minions were headless, brackish goo splattered everywhere, and Spike was crouched beside her.

“Stupid, woman.  You just couldn’t wait.  Had to be the hero.  Had to nearly get yourself killed,” Spike growled.  His words were furious, but Buffy could hear the fear in them.

“I am the hero,” she muttered quietly, suddenly feeling the exhaustion she was beginning to associate with being pregnant.  “Or in this case the princess.”  She tried for chirpy, but it came out whiskey hoarse.

“Don’t I know it,” he muttered.  “High maintenance is what you are.”  She rolled her eyes at him, but she didn’t stop him when he leaned forward to nuzzle her cheek.  It was the barest of touches, but she felt the tingle all the way down her spine.  Spike helped her to her feet, his hand strong and steady under her elbow.  In a rare show of weakness she allowed herself to lean into him, soaking up his strength.  He smelled like blood, violence and the night air.  He smelled familiar.

Riley stood a little ways away, watching them closely with narrowed, assessing eyes.  The gray-skinned demon appeared at the top of the stairs in a flurry, startling Riley who swung a rifle in his direction.

“Stop!”  Buffy commanded with enough authority for Riley to automatically glance towards her.  “You should get the others and go,” she told the gray demon.  She didn’t want anyone to be hurt, because they were helping her.  She knew she shouldn’t care.  They were demons and at some point she was going to have to hunt them, but tonight they got a free pass.  Riley and Buffy’s gazes were locked so they didn’t see the silent question from Dekker and Spike’s nod for him to obey Buffy.  The demon quickly turned and fled the scene, worry for his hide and his friends evident.

“What are you?”  Riley asked, a pronounced frown creasing his wide forehead.  “Are you, like, Queen of the Demons?”

“Huh!?”  Buffy gasped, completely dumbfounded.  Behind her Spike snorted.

“Are you raising an army to attack us?”  Riley pushed.

“Attack who?” Buffy countered, bewildered.

“Humans.”

“I am human!”  Buffy couldn’t believe it.  He actually thought she was some demon queen set on raising an army?  Why would he think something so ludicrous?

“Well, you’re something, but it’s not human.  You kicked that hostile across the room like he was a nerf ball and you’ve a battalion of demons at your beck and call.  Not to mention a vampire at your right hand, snarling at me like a guard dog.”  He lifted his rifle, not the least bit surprised when Hostile Seventeen stepped between him and the girl.  “See.  Guard dog.”

“I’m gonna twist your head off, you wanker.”  He was no one’s dog.  He was a master vampire, and damned if he didn’t want to show this army git what that meant.  Spike raged at the unfairness of it all.  He was the top predator in the food chain, and yet he couldn’t assert his strength, because some berk thought it would be funny to mess with the natural order.

“I’d like to see you try, Hostile Seventeen.  Being chipped and all, you might find it a little hard.”  It wasn’t hard to recognize the vampire.  His bleached hair and leather jacket made him distinctive.  He was also the most powerful vampire they had ever captured.  Professor Walsh would be ecstatic to get him back.

“Stop it!  Both of you.”  Buffy stepped forward, ignoring Spike’s hedging to try and keep her behind him.  He glanced down at her small, retraining hand on his arm, but she didn’t remove it.  The last thing she wanted to do was attack a human to protect Spike.  The Slayer inside her whispered she should just let him go.  Let him attack the commando.  Let him get captured.  If he were no longer in her life, there would be one less confusion.  Her fingers tightened on his arm as her entire being rejected the thought almost instantaneously.

“Slayer, the.  As in the Chosen One.  You should look it up.  I’m certainly no demon queen.  That’s just stupid.”  The look on her face told Riley how much of an idiot she thought him to be for just thinking it.

“We need to go, Slayer,” Spike urged.  He didn’t trust the tosser not to turn his rifle on Buffy and try to capture her.  Buffy nodded, and together they tried to step around Riley.

“I don’t think so, Hostile Seventeen.  You’re coming back with me.”  Riley leveled his rifle at Spike only to have it painfully kicked out of his hands by Buffy.  Before he could respond he was thrust into the wall by a little girl who was barely hundred pounds soaking wet.

“Let me give you some info about Slayers, commando boy.  We’re protective and territorial.  You can’t just roll up into my town and start grabbing the Big Bads off the streets.  You’re supposed to kill demons, not shove crap in their brains or whatever else you’re doing.  You guys are giving me the wiggins.”  She shoved him into the wall again for emphasis, shocked at her own outburst.  The protectiveness she felt for Spike wasn’t love or desire.  It was elementally tied to the protectiveness she felt for her child.  He was important to the safety of her child, therefore he was important to her.  She was sure these feelings were manufactured by the same magical influences that created their child in the first place.  Weren’t they?  Stupid magic.  She was getting real tired of having her emotions jerked around by it.

As she and Spike walked away from Riley she had a sudden understanding of what Spike was going through.  His almost fanatical protectiveness of her and their unborn child was more than likely magically induced as well.  It was in her nature to protect.  It was apart of who she was.  But what of Spike’s true nature?  He was a killer.  If she was having a hard time coping, how must he feel?  This situation wasn’t of his own free will.  In fact, it was against his very nature.  He was being coerced. 

The thought gave her pause.  If she believed that her emotions for Spike, and his emotions for the child were falsely implanted, did that mean she believed her love for her child was false as well?  It wasn’t as if this was a planned pregnancy with a man who loved her.  She couldn’t even rightly say it was the product of a one night stand.  So why was she so fiercely protective?  Did she even love her unborn child as a mother should love a child or was she just being jerked around?

Outside the clock tower she paused with her hand over her belly.  Spike stopped, looking at her questioningly.  Something clenched desperately in the hollow spot beneath her heart.  She loved her child.  She did.  She really did.  But how did she know if those feelings were true?  How could she know if Spike’s feelings were true?

She looked up at Spike, sorrow ebbing off her in waves.  She watched his throat as he swallowed hard.  How could she know if anything was real?

“Buffy, are you okay? Is the baby?”  His voice was soft, concern radiating from him.  He gripped her elbow as if to show her a measure of support, but she pulled away. 

“The baby’s fine.”  She stuffed her hands in her pockets, turning away to trudge back to Giles’.  She felt tingles across her nape as Spike followed behind her.

As they entered the courtyard of Giles’ apartment complex a dark-haired man in leathers appeared out of the shadows.  Buffy tensed, noting how the man’s gray eyes stayed respectively adverted from her face.

“Go on in, luv.  I’ll be just a mo’.”

Buffy glanced at Spike then back to the man.  He wore the same studded leathers as the gray-skinned demon.  It never occurred to her there could be other demons in the world who could take on human guises like vampires.  It made sense that vampires weren’t the only demons to be able to do so.  If demons always ran around in their true form, the whole human race wouldn’t be as clueless as they were.  Hiding in plain sight was a trick most predators in the natural world used to hunt.  She cast the demon one last narrowed look before going inside.

“Did every one get out, okay?”  Spike asked Dekker.  It had been one of the hardest decisions he ever had to make, sending his cadre of demons after the humans.  The demons weren’t the same as the disposable minions he used in the past.  Most of them were family demons who joined his crew so they could take care of their own.  Spike was their boss not their master, and as such he was responsible for them.

“Spil’jal didn’t make it,” Dekker informed him quietly.  “They captured him.”

Spike raged.  He wished he knew where the labs were.  He wished he had the power to destroy the wankers who were tearing through the demon community like Nazis crusading on their own personal demon holocaust.  He wished he could do something….

“Tell the others to get home to their families.  Those wankers are getting more aggressive.  Tell everyone to start staying off the streets at night.  Maybe if they aren’t getting as many of us they’ll get bored and wander off.”

Dekker scoffed at the unlikeliness of that, and Spike smirked in agreement.  He clapped his second-in-command on the shoulder, and turned to go inside Giles’ flat just in time to hear Buffy’s whining pitch.

“So now Riley thinks I’m some demon queen or something.”

“What, Riley?  Our TA from Professor Walsh’s class?”  Willow asked.

“Yah.  I’m starting to think his little frat buddies are all in on it.  They’re all muscly and stuff.”

Willow pursed her lips and nodded in agreement.  “They’re having a party next weekend.  Maybe we should go and snoop?”

“Oh. Oh.  Recon!”  Xander bounced excitedly.

Spike did not like the sound of this plan.  Although, he couldn’t identify the acidic burn in his stomach as being worry for her safety or jealousy at her being around ‘muscly’ males.  It wasn’t hard for him to put together that Riley was the mysterious guy who Buffy said wanted to have sex with her. 

“Buffy, why would this Riley person think you were royalty?” Giles questioned, his brow furrowed as he shot Spike a dirty look.  Spike crossed his arms and leaned against the closed door, watching as Buffy held court in the center of the room.  She was beautiful even when she was being a snotty bitch.

“Because Spike showed up with a battalion of demons to ‘protect me’.”  She used air quotes as she sneered at Spike.  Taken aback by the implication that Spike was yet again asserting his authority over Sunnydale’s underground population, Giles stalled for time by polishing his glasses.

“It was hardly a battalion, Slayer.  It was jus’ some blokes who work for me.”

“You have demons that work for you?” Xander gaped at Spike.  He was suitably if not scarily impressed.

“Have you become Master of Sunnydale again, Spike?” Giles asked with solemnity that made the hairs on the back of Buffy’s neck go on end.  The way Giles said ‘master’ made it sound like a dirty word.

“No!  I’m no one’s Master.  I don’t got any minions or whatnot.  They jus’ work for me.”

“Great!  No minion having.  That would be bad.  Wait.  The demons work for you doing what?”  Xander asked.

“Spike is running some sort of protection racket for demon business owners.”  Buffy crossed her arms and glared at Spike who returned her look with an equally hard stare.

“Demons own businesses?”  Xander leapt off the couch in a panic.

“Duh.  Who do you think does all the crappy jobs humans won’t do?  Who else would be brave enough to do business after dark in Sunnydale?  It’s scary and dangerous here,” Anya pointed out reasonably.

Xander pinned Spike with his dark eyes.  “So you’re like The Boss.  Like Don Corleone?”

Spike’s upper lip curled suggestively.  “More like Tony Montana.”

“Yah, I can totally see the murderous streak in you,” Xander sneered, looking Spike up and down.

“You’re not murdering anyone are you?”  Buffy narrowed her deadly eyes on him.

“No!”  Spike spat.  “Said I wouldn’t.  Like I told your mum, no big evils for me anymore.”

“Or snorting the snow?” Xander quipped.

“What?” Spike spat truly bewildered.

“You aren’t selling drugs to little demon kids?”  Willow asked, still stuck on Scarface with Xander.

“No, goddamit.  Stop being thick,” Spike sneered and instantly regretted it when Willow flinched.  Slayer wasn’t going to like him being snarly with her bestie.

Buffy opened her mouth to say something, but Giles cut her off.  “Children, we are getting off topic.  Buffy, you say this Riley person now knows who you are and your calling?”  His gaze was piercing, and Buffy had to fight the urge not to scrape her toe across the floor like a chastised child.

“It’s all Spike’s fault,” she whined.  “If he hadn’t shown up with a bunch of demons I could have probably snuck in and done my business and got out without being seen.”

“Not likely, Slayer.  They had an entire squad there.  The more likely scenario is they would have caught you.”

“Whatev.  I didn’t need your demony protection, I’m human.”  She crossed her arms with a pout.  Spike absolutely resisted the urge to bite her lower lip. 

“Maybe, but you tossin’ monsters ten feet into the air don’t look so human.  ‘Sides someone needs to watch your back.”

“You don’t care about me,” she accused, hating the insecurity in her voice.  “Just our baby.  I’m some jar you don’t want to get broken.  Don’t try to make it out to be some noble thing.”   I can’t believe I just called myself a jar.  This is what a college education does to you.  Rots your brain with useless information.

“I don’t do noble, Slayer.  You have no idea what I care about.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“I care that one of my blokes got pinched while watchin’ your ungrateful skinny arse.  I care that he’s probably splayed open on some vivisectionist’s table having his innards poked at by some Dr. Frankenstein in that underground dungeon.  I care that I’m gonna hav’ta leave here and go tell his mate he won’t be coming home, but the Slayer says ‘ta, but you sacrifice don’t mean a rat’s arse’.”

Buffy’s gold complexion washed white as she drew back from Spike.  For a single moment he could see the girl in her, before the Slayer came to the forefront.

“He’s just a demon.”  She tried her hardest to sneer.  To sound cold.  But her voice was small even to her ears.

“He’s a demon with a family who was trying to protect ours.  And no one, not even demons, deserves to be tortured.”

“A demon with a family,” Buffy scoffed.  “Next you’ll be telling me he works for the Easter Bunny and hands out lollipops to good little girls and boys.”

“Bunnies!  There will be no bunnies!  Xander, please tell them there will be no bunnies.”  Anya clutched her boyfriend’s arm, but he didn’t draw his gaze away from the arguing pair to comfort her.  Spike’s words gave him an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“You’re some piece of work, Summers.  Everythin’s so black and white for you.  ‘nd you’re the center of your colorless soddin’ universe.  I hope you don’t raise our girl to be as biased as you are.”

“I will raise her to be strong, and to not go around trusting what goes bump in the night.  I don’t know about you, Spike, but I don’t want our baby being eaten, because she thinks every Tom, Dick and Hairy with horns are the good guys.  ‘Cause they’re not.  They’re just not.”

“Maybe not.  But they ain’t all bad either.  That’s somethin’ you need to learn.  Someone might be dead because of you.”

Buffy turned away, suddenly tired.  “Yah, well.  He’s not the only one.”  She thought about the hearts in the jars.  She failed more than just a demon tonight.  Some Chosen One she was.  “I didn’t ask for protection.  I’m the Chosen One, Spike.”

“Yah.  I get it.  You fight alone.  You die alone.  You ever think that it’s the alone part that gets you Slayers killed?  Would it be so bad to have a little help on the battlefield?”

“Apparently, it is.”  Buffy flung up her hand halfheartedly.  “If your guy hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t be captured, now would he?”  She was tired.  Her shoulders drooped under the pressure she normally bore with ease.  When did things become so complicated?  When did growing up become so hard?  Everything used to be black and white.  Now the world was a washed out gray.

“I honestly don’t know what the big deal is.  So, what?  Some demon is getting his due.  Hello, evil!”  Satisfied his oversimplification answered one of the dilemmas on the table, Xander moved to his real concern.  He turned towards Buffy, his face pinched.  “Aren’t you going to get an abortion?  You guys keep talking like Buffy’s gonna give birth to this freakazoid.  Just go to the clinic and get it flushed already.  While you’re at it, why don’t you stake Spike so we don’t have to worry about him going gansta on us.”

Buffy gaped at Xander, completely ignoring the deadly growl that was gaining in intensity behind her.  She couldn’t believe the amount of hurt flooding her heart at his hateful words.  She was hardened against his biases when it came to the undead.  His constant demands for stakings to be handed out to Angel and Spike barely registered in her consciousness anymore.  She was just used to ignoring him.  But for him to say such things about her baby.  For him to be so callous about the life she carried inside of her.  It hurt.  It hurt a lot.

The crack of flesh on flesh came out of nowhere and shocked everyone.  Xander and Willow stared at each other for long seconds.  A handprint bloomed red on his face, and the flesh of her palm itched from the strike.

“T-that is my n-neice you are talking about murdering, Alexander Harris.”  Willow could barely speak she was so enraged.  Her lips were pressed into a straight white line and she had to spit out the words with effort.  “Nothing that comes from Buffy could ever be evil.  Their baby will be beautiful.  Now you apologize right now.”

Xander cradled his jaw in his hand, his brow crinkling.  He didn’t glance at Buffy or Spike.  His entire being was riveted on his very best friend in the world and the blatant disapproval rolling off her in waves.  Willow never disapproved of him.  Sometimes she scolded and shushed him, but she never outright disapproved with such ferocious venom.  It confused him, because he honestly didn’t know what he did wrong.

“I-I don’t understand,” he stuttered.  “Buffy called it a monster just the other night.  What’s changed?”

Buffy’s back bowed, her heart clenching as her own words were thrown back into her face.  She had called her baby a monster within Xander’s hearing, and so much worse in the graveyard with Giles.  She couldn’t blame Xander for not understanding.  Her being pregnant with a vampire’s child was a tough nut to swallow.  She crossed to him, placing her hand on his arm.  His brown eyes were watery as he looked down at her, and she tried for a reassuring smile, but she was sure it came out more like a grimace.

“What’s changed, Xander is that I know this child isn’t a monster.  She isn’t evil.  She’s a gift from the Powers That Be.  She’s something for Spike and I to protect.  She’s a miracle.”

“You sound like him.  He’s corrupted you.  Twisted you somehow.  How can you think this child is anything but evil?”

Buffy withdrew her hand like it was scalded.  She felt Spike’s comforting coolness at her back and she had to restrain the urge to lean back into his strength.  She was doing that a lot lately, and it made her angry.  She wasn’t a leaner, she was the leaned on.  She couldn’t stop the small traitorous voice murmuring how nice it was to not be the strongest one in the room all the time.

Willow’s hand whipped out and snagged Xander by the ear.  She yanked him down to her much lower level, nearly toppling him over.  He howled with hurt, but quickly shut his mouth when she dug in her nails with a warning for him to hush up.

“You apologize right now or you’ll regret it.”

“Ow.  Okay.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m all on board with the magical baby having.  It’s gonna be an angel from heaven,” he yelped not very convincingly.

“That’s right.  And you better remember that, Alexander Harris,” Willow growled very convincingly.

“Okay, I get it.  Let go.”  Willow released him and he sprang away rubbing his ear furiously.  “You know what?  You’re all crazy.  I’m so outta here.”  Fuming he stomped out the door, leaving it wide open in his rage.

“You alright, luv?”  Spike rubbed his hands down Buffy’s arms, but she shrugged him off.  She wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to keep all her rage and sorrow tightly wound up inside her.

“Just go, Spike.  Go and don’t come back.  I’m tired of this charade.”

She waved Spike off with finality and slowly trudged to the bathroom.  For a moment everyone in the room thought Spike would explode in rage, then he just slumped his shoulders in defeat.  Shaking his head, he stalked through the opened door and disappeared into the night.

A/N:  Reviews won’t break my heart.  I promise!