Thanksgiving Day, 2012


"No," Buffy said, and let out a little sigh.

She wasn't all that surprised. Another month, another no; and if trying again meant more Olympic-worthy shagathons like the one she was currently recovering from? She could suck it up and deal.

Except she'd had a little more hope than usual this time. She'd even bought the fancy-shmancy new never-wrong kit that promised results in three seconds.

Pouting at the back of the box, she noticed something she hadn't before: the TrueBlueE-Z3® had a RE-ZultButton®. Press for your three-second result!

"Duh." She pressed it, and the digital display blinked and changed color.

She gasped, hand over her mouth. "...Spike?"

Behind her, at the bathroom sink, he slid a razor up his cheek. "Hmm?"

"Not no." She couldn't stop staring at it. Blue. Positive. "Yes."

"Yes?" He dropped his razor and grabbed the test out of her hand. "It's blue. Is that blue? That's not--" He squinted. "Is it blue?"

"It's totally blue. See?" She pressed the button again and the display switched to Pregnant. "Baby blue." Her eyes met his, and she smiled. "We did it."

"I'll be buggered," he breathed, stunned. "You know, I had a feeling? Like something huge was gonna happen today?"

"Me too." She led his hand beneath her camisole, to her flat-for-now belly. "Guess that something huge is gonna be me."

He cocked a brow.

"Say hello to bunny number three."

"Hello, Bunny." Staring at her lips, he rubbed her belly, then aimed southward as he moved in for a smooch. "Goodbye, Mommy's underpants."

"Stop!" With a giggle, she snatched the towel from his waist to wipe her cheek. "You're getting your cream all over my face."

Snickering evilly, he waved his growing erection at her. "That's the plan."

"No," she said, checking herself in the mirror, "the 'plan' is to call my mother and tell her the amazing news before we get dressed, round up the fam and celebrate Thanksgiving like a normal married couple." She pushed him away again. "Normal. As in not with the constant creamy nakedness?"

"Ooh." He sucked in a breath and stroked his cock. "Say that again."

She threw her hands up and left the room.

"When you gonna get it through your nog, Buffy?" Quickly, he toweled the shaving cream from his neck. "We're not normal!"

"Speak for yourself," she muttered as she grabbed the PDA on the dresser. She hit the Mom dial, but it made an impotent chirp. The one downside to living in a secluded, to-die-for beachfront estate? No freaking cell phone reception.

She stepped out onto the balcony and held the device toward the sun. "Come on. Give me one bar. Just one... Yes!"

"Tell her at dinner, will you?" A randy, naked Spike python-squeezed her from behind, dug his fingertips into her belly and raised her feet off the ground. "They'll know soon enough. Let's keep this ours for now."

Touched by the sentiment, even though he was dry-humping her crack, she relented. "I guess it can wait."

"Enjoy the moment, yeah?" He tossed her phone onto the lounge chair behind them and swept her hair away from her neck to press his still-stubbled cheek to hers. "You, me, the little sea monkey wiggling around in your tummy..."

"Mm, nothing like the image of wiggling sea monkeys to get a girl in the mood."

"Thought the breathtaking view took care of the romance for me." He kissed her shoulder and eased her camisole strap down. "Do I need to buy you another view?"

Relaxing into him, she ran her fingers through his hair. "Nah, it still does it for me." How could it not? Lush greenery and fragrant flowers sloping toward a private beach, and after that, nothing but ocean and sky.

She thought of the day he'd surprised her with it. For almost a year, she'd been convinced that he was cheating on her -- when in actuality, he and Xander had been remodeling this house in their off time. With their bare hands. Just for her.

It came as such a shock that she was miffed at first: How dare he make such a huge decision without consulting with her? Besides, if she'd known, she could have helped, it would have gone faster and could have even been fun, plus she wouldn't have wasted so much precious energy inspecting his pants and cross-examining every vaguely attractive female he worked with! Including Anya!

But then he showed her this view, and she got it.

"It's not a bad back yard to have," she said, just as she'd said then.

More concerned with her backside than their back yard, Spike spread her ass cheeks. "New kid's gonna have the good life."

"Holy crap. We're having another baby."

"Been too bloody long."

"Has it been too long?" She tried to turn around, but he wouldn't let her. "Did we make the right decision?"

Barely listening as he rubbed against her, he said, "It's perfect, baby. Everything's perfect."

"Seriously, Spike. What if this is too much privilege?" She gestured at their surroundings. "What if it grows up to be Paris Hilton? Or, or one of those lazy playboys with greasy hair and a greasier hatred of women?"

"Chance would kill it first."

"Oh my god!" Her eyes widened. "How do we tell Chance?"

"Bridge," Spike said, tugging her lacy panties down her hips. "Come to it."

She pulled them back up. "She's gonna hate us, isn't she?"

"She's thirteen. She'll hate us no matter what. Now let Big Daddy in."

"You can't be serious." She reached down to stop him from prodding her asshole. "We did this all morning and all last night!"

"But I didn't know you were pregnant then." He murmured against her ear, knowing how pliable it made her. "Come on, kitten. We still got you and me time left..."

"They'll be back any minute now."

"So don't be so bloody loud."

"Me, bloody loud?" She turned to face him and interlocked her fingers behind his neck, lips moving alluringly as she teased, "Was I the one yelling, 'Take it, take my big bad cock Slayer' all night long? 'Cause I don't think I was."

"Mmhm." He'd slipped his hands into her underpants to fondle her ass. "Was I the one who said," he pitched his voice up an octave, "'Look Spike, it's my high school Halloween dress! Remember that night I was so helpless and vulnerable you nearly had your wicked way with me and my defenseless teenage virgin bits?'"

She smirked. "That's not what I said."

"That's what I heard." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Wanna put it on again?"

"You ripped it to shreds. With your teeth."

"Bugger." He shrugged. "Oh well. Least I got it all on tape."

She snorted, then said, "You're joking, right?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You won't know 'til it's on the inter--Ow!" Her stinging slap only served to arouse him more, but she knew that. "That's no way to treat an expectant father, is it?"

"Sure it is." She tapped at his lips, let him bite her fingertips. "If that father is you."

"I do like it rough." He tore her panties in half.

Eyes falling shut, she heaved a sigh and said for what had to be the millionth time, "I liked that pair."

"Pity." He gave them to her, then sat her up on the railing to spread her legs and use the tip of his cock to ease apart her labia. "Add it to my tab."

"That's a mighty big tab you're running, Mister Summers-Hart," she said, and blocked his course with her busted panties. "And we so don't have time for this."

"Funny, I could swear you just called me 'Mister'." For Buffy, that formality was strictly reserved for foreplay. As was the fingernail circling his nipple.

"Still." She stopped touching him, tied the lace-elastic scrap around his neck and fluffed it out. "We have too much to do today."

"Uh-huh," he said, checking her top for seams. "How do I get this off?"

"You don't, because we're not gonna--" In an instant, he managed to destroy the sixty dollar camisole she planned to wear that day. "I hate you."

"I worship you." Starting at her neck, he kissed an ardent trail down her body, sucking and licking her tenderest spots along the way.

"You're lucky you're rich." Balanced on the railing, she nestled one hand in his hair and arched toward his tongue. "And fairly... okay at that."

"Mmhmm," he said, laughter muffled by her skin.

Thumb curving into her pussy, palm flat against her clit, he flicked his tongue into her asshole and stroked himself with his free hand.

She almost let him have his way. After all, he was considerate enough to jump ahead to her fastest route to orgasm, and she didn't hate watching him touch himself...

But then he had to pause to say, "I win again, Slayer."

"Ooh, premature gloating. Will you ever learn?"

Yanking him up by the hair, she kneed him in the chest and watched him fly through one of the French doors and skid across the bedroom floor.

"Tsk tsk." He brushed the glass and busted door frame off of his chest. "You broke the house again, pet."

"Pity." She sauntered up to him, stepped on his throat to thread her toes beneath the underwear she'd tied around his neck, and flexed her foot. "Add it to my tab."

Face turning pink, he seized her ankle and springboarded her onto the bed. "So we're about even, then?"

"Nuh-uh." When he came close, she wrestled him onto his back, climbed aboard, fastened his wrists to the steel bedposts and said, "Now we're even."

Then she got up and left him there.

He watched her choose a new pair of underwear. "Hey!"

"Oh. Did you want something, honey?"

"Buffy, come on...!"

It wasn't that she didn't want to finish what he'd started, because yeah, now she kinda did. The problem was, she'd been his bitch for most of the night, and while that wasn't not fun to play, the power balance had to be restored.

She grinned at his reflection. "Say 'pretty please'."





More to come...

Chance burst through the kitchen door and hid behind it. Head bopping to the beat of her favorite song, she slung off her overnight bag, snapped a band out of her hair, re-tied one of her knotty pigtails, checked her Happy Bunny watch, rolled her eyes and waited, absently twirling her practice drumsticks.

When the rotten egg trailing her finally caught up, she pounced, knocking him face-first to the granite floor. "That was pathetic!"

"Cha-ance!" He wheezed. "Get off of me! You're hurting my neck!"

"'Waaah, you're hurting my neck!' Quit being such a baby or I'll tell Staaaceeey!"

"Shut up, I don't like her! She's tall and stupid!"

"And you're a tiny nerd. It's perfect!"

"You don't know anything!" He struggled futilely beneath her. "You and all your hare-brained friends are morons!"

"Least I have friends." She drummed a double paradiddle on his head and turned it into a song. "I have friends and you do not. I have friends and you do not. All your friends are on the in-ter-net. And they're old! So they don't count!"

"Get off of me, you... fatass!"

She gasped. "You know all those big words and that's the best you could come up with?"

"I try to use words you can understand. Fatass fatass fatass!"

"Nerd nerdy nerd nerd nerd nerd NERD!"

"Tapioca pudding, raspberry syrup and... a noose. Yeah, I'll see what I can do, babe." Xander closed his cell phone and paused at the door. "Hey, hey, ease up on Peanut."

"My name is not--"

"Sorry, Ian. My bad. Chance, nobody likes a bully."

"Who's bullying?" She grinned winsomely, braces glinting in the sunshine. "We're just playing around. Right, Peanut?"

"No."

She scoffed. "Traitor."

"All right, come on. His face is turning purple."

With a 'you're no fun' sigh, she stood up and let her brother go.

"You almost broke my glasses!"

"Good! They make you look like a geek!" She ducked as he threw his worn copy of The War of the Worlds. "Oo-ooh, he threw a whole book at me! That's like, at least an ounce!"

"I hope you die!" He stormed away to his room.

"I hope you grow!"

The slam of his door reverberated throughout the house.

~

"Fucking hell," Spike said through grit teeth, "they're bloody back already?"

"Didn't I say?" Buffy bounced faster and said, breathless, "Hurry up and come."

He sneered. "Make me."

"Oh, but that would be so easy," she teased.

"Think so, do you?"

"Know so." With a minxy smile, she slid her hands up her torso and pushed her breasts together. "Month seven. Porn tits."

That made him laugh, but it also made his cock throb. She knew him so well.

"Month eight?" Hips churning, interior muscles clenching, she tongued one of her nipples, then bent forward to tease it over his mouth. "Alll the milk you can drink."

He tried to catch it, but she pulled away and whipped her head up and around. Her hair stung his face.

"Month nine." She moved from one ear to the other as she whispered so seductively that the word sounded obscene, "Fecund. Fecund. Fecund."

With a tormented squeak, he jerked at his manacles.

"Wanna live to see all that?" She tightened the lace undies around his neck until he choked, then licked her lips and said, "Come in me."

"Oh, god I fucking love you...!"

~

"I'll go tell Mom and Dad we're--" Chance froze and shuddered, face screwed in disgust. "Oh! Ew! Ew! Ew!"

"What? What is it?"

"Can you believe those two? God!"

"Believe what? Where?"

She shouted at the ceiling, "We're back and we can hear you up there! Stop doing it!" She looked at Xander. "Surprise, my folks are at it like rabbits -- again! It's not normal, you know. I checked around."

"Rabbits, huh?" Did she know how fitting that description was? "Guess I'm lucky hearing dulls with age."

Wincing, she stuck her drumsticks in her ears. "Okay, you had to have heard that. It was deafening!" She sang out, "And GROSS!"

All Xander heard was silence, then some creaking, followed by waterflow in the pipes. "Again, no complaints."

"You really didn't hear that? Maybe it's just me." Wedging the sticks into her back pocket and raiding the fridge, she tossed him a bottle of Crystal Springs and opened a zip-loc of baby carrots. "My ears have been kinda wonky for a few days now. Ever since my birthday party."

"You mean ever since the night you wore out your new drumkit while my son rocked out on the same three non-chords at full volume? Can't see how that could affect your hearing."

"Go on, make fun. But by junior year, Jesse's gonna rip on guitar and Fighting Chance is gonna play the Bronze." She flashed him a pair of devil-horn fingers.

"Sure, as long as you don't both go deaf before the big show."

"Except I can hear better than ever. Like, last night, I could hear the dog breathing in the yard. From the guest room. And then I heard you and Anya figh– Talking."

Xander choked on his water, and quickly recovered. "That's okay, we fightalk a lot."

"I swear I wasn't eavesdropping -- I just couldn't turn your voices off. It was like you were right there next to me." She munched on a carrot. "What's up with that teacher, anyway? The twins aren't short bus, they're just quirky. And six."

"I know, right? They're -- Wait." He pointed at her. "That was a whisper-fightalk. With the shower running."

"Told you. Wonky."

If she could hear that... Did they talk about her history the night before? About demons, vampires, slayers... bunny rabbits? "Just... out of curiosity... What else did you hear?"

"Not much. It comes and goes. Oh, the other day at track practice Grant Lorman called me a dumb see-you-en-tee, only he didn't spell it, and I heard it all the way across the field." She concluded proudly, "So I jumped over seven hurdles in like, two seconds and beat the snot out of him."

"I see you're upholding the family tradition." He winked at Buffy, who was coming down the steps, freshened up and casually dressed.

"Who'd she beat up this time?" Buffy said as she entered the kitchen, "It better not be Peanut."

"Don't get mad when you're the one who taught me how." Chance straightened out her Summers Self-Defense for Girls baby tee for emphasis.

"For self-defense," Buffy said, underlining the words. "Not for pummeling innocent children."

"Innocent? Ha! Grant Lorman is the meanest boy at school."

"Oh-hoh," Buffy drew out meaningfully. "That family tradition."

"Ew! I don't like him or anything! He's totally gross."

"Oh, sweetie." She pet her daughter's head. Chance was nearly her height and was developing faster than she had. With her robust, athletic frame, she was already looking older than her actual age. Spike was going to go berserk when he finally noticed. "That's how it starts."

"Hey, just because you met Dad by kicking his butt at judo or whatever doesn't mean the rest of us are aggro freaks."

"Kendo," Buffy said. "With the wooden sticks? And we're not... aggro freaks, we're your loving parents."

"Yeah. Could you try not to love so loud? I still feel a little sick. Uncle Xan does too."

"Didn't hear a thing," Xander said, pleading Innocent Bystander.

Buffy blinked, unsure of how to proceed. "Is that what you thought? No, honey, we were just sparring."

"Mom?" Chance leveled with her. "I stopped buying that when I was seven."

Face frozen, Buffy stared at her daughter, then at Xander.

Xander's phone made a whipcrack sound. "Saved by the ball and chain." He opened it. "Best timing ever. Yes, An, I'm on my-- Garlic cloves and vinegar? For what? ...Of course." He glanced at them and explained, "The twins are baking a cake."

"There's my beautiful little brat!" Spike made a beeline for Chance, arms open wide. "Give your old Pop a snuggle."

"Don't come any closer," Chance warned, backing up and forming a cross with two baby carrots. "I mean it!"

"Yeah, that never did work on me. Right, Harris?" He grabbed her wrist, crunched into one of the carrots and pulled her up into a stifling hug.

Xander, who'd come off the phone, covered his mouth and asked Buffy furtively, "Are we talking about that now?"

"No, Spike's just an idiot." They'd agreed to tell her everything when she turned twelve. And then twelve became thirteen, and thirteen became fourteen... "I'm thinking sixteen. Or thirty-five. Whatever comes second."

"Mom!" Chance recoiled from the kisses Spike was relentlessly planting all over her face. "Dad's embarrassing me again!"

"Join the club, sweetie," Buffy breezed, unconcerned. "Is Peanut in his room?"

"He's always in his room," Chance said, "Sulking. Or worse, reading."

"Pffft. Reading," Spike commiserated, then compared his mouthful of minced carrot to Chance's.

"I just couldn't be more proud right now," Buffy told Xander with a sarcastic grin.

The whip cracked again. "Gotta run, kids. See you at two?"

"Uh-huh," Buffy said and kissed his cheek. "Thanks again."

"Yeah, thanks mate," Spike said, trading stunt blows with Chance. "I owe you one."

"Hold on, hold on." He pressed record on his phone, pointed it Spike's way and covered his ear as if they were in a studio. "A little louder?"

"Piss off."

"And that, my friends, is my new Spike ring tone." He played it back, saluted and took his leave. "Later, turkeys."

"See ya Uncle Xan!" Chance said, and then, "Hyah!"

Spike staggered dramatically across the kitchen in reaction to a stage kick, and Buffy smiled. How could she second-guess their decision to have another child when he so clearly lived for this? In every way?

Chance bounded over to him and pretended to double-punch him in the gut, then elbowed him in the back with a, "Huuh!"

He sagged to his knees and crumpled to the floor. "Ohhggghh... You got me."

Fists in the air, Chance jumped up and down like a prize fighter. "Mess with the best, get punk-slapped like the rest!"

"She really is a little you," Spike observed from his vantage point on the floor. "Bloody awful puns and all."

"Hey!" Buffy and Chance said together, "Okay, first of all--"

Mirrored fingers in the air, they looked at each other.

"I rest my case. And speaking of chips off the old block," he stood upright, dusted himself off and called out, "Where's my boy genius?"

"Bwah," Buffy and Chance laughed in harmony. "Hahahahaha."

"Nasty little hens." He strutted up to his wife. "I'll have you know I'm a bit more than just a pretty face."

"You're right." She pinched and patted his cheek. "You're also a delusional narcissist in dire need of a shave."

He yanked her close. "I don't know what you just said but by god it made me hot."

Buffy giggled.

"Hello?" Chance interjected, appalled. "Not in front of the children?"

"Sorry, Bunny." He sighed, gazing at Buffy's smiling lips. "Your Mum just looks so beautiful this morning."

"Whatever." She made for the steps. "You guys are acting so weird. Weird even for you."

Buffy gave him guilt eyes, and he freed his hold on her lower back. "I'll go round Ian up."

"I'll go," Buffy said. "He needs--"

"He doesn't need your mollycoddling. Trust me."

"Yeah, you know he threw a book at me?" Chance said. "Like, hard! It almost hurt."

"And you did nothing to deserve it, I'm sure," Spike said, sardonic.

"Nothing at all! I mean, I mighta sat on his neck and played his head like a tom." Off of their looks, she said, "What? He's a little runt with a girlie voice. Someone's gotta toughen him up."

As the fruit of their loins hopped up the staircase, Buffy sighed. "So she's evil after all."

Spike put a comforting arm around her and said, "Rotten to the bloody core."




More to come...

"Descendents," Spike said. "Catalina."

"Nope." Chance continued to drum on the back of his seat. "Different D."

Spike listened as he slowed for a yellow light. "Dead Boys--"

"Wrong! Distillers, 'Beat Your Heart Out'. I win!"

"You cheated."

"How is that cheating?"

"You didn't hint 'second-rate chick band'."

"Dad!" Chance whacked his arm, and he laughed. "You're such a poseur. You love chick bands, admit it. Raincoats, Crass, the Runaways? Back me up, Mom."

"What?" Buffy took the fuzzy blue earmuffs off her head, the ones Anya had passed along after the twins' last birthday: they were shaped like bunny heads and thus had no business in the Harris house. Buffy kept them in her purse, as they came in handy during father/daughter games like Name That Beat (Even If It Sounds Exactly Like Every Other Punk Rock Beat Ever Beaten) and Who's More Obnoxious, Me or You? "Sorry; muffs."

"The Muffs! Another excellent example."

"Go me with my excellent example-giving," said Buffy. "What was that an example of?"

"Dad's a poseur."

"Psh. Yeah he is."

"Oh, now that's just not fair," Spike said. "Ian? Where's my bloody backup?"

"Out of it." Chance plucked the earbuds out of Ian's ears. "Wake up, Weenie!"

"I was listening to that! Give it back!"

"Dad needs you."

"Oh. Sorry, Daddy."

"Right, tell these two for me," fingers on his lips, he considered the options and settled on, "'Sod off you daft cows'."

Ian giggled.

"Don't you dare," Buffy warned her son, and slapped Spike's leg.

"What? They're hardly bad words," Spike justified, turning down Revello Drive.

"Yeah, it's pretty innocuous, Mom," Ian said.

"Sweetie, I love you, and I love your Dad but I don't want you to ever talk like him. Ever ever."

"He just said 'innoculous'," Chance said with air quotes and an eyeroll. "I'm thinking you don't need to worry."

"There's no L in innocuous," Ian said. "Dummy."

"Point taken," Buffy said.

"Besides, if he gets his big swishy wish and goes to boarding school in England," Chance said, doing her best Hermione as she held Ian's iPod out of his reach, "he'll talk like Harry Pot-tah! And our dear old Grandpa-paah."

"I'd rather talk like Grandpa than you."

"No one is talking like anyone because Peanut is not going anywhere," Buffy said. And that was final. He was her baby, dammit.

"Mom!"

"Sorry." She shut her eyes. "Ian. Sorry."

"You're listening to a book?" Chance said, throwing the iPod at Ian in a fit of disappointment. "I can't believe I'm related to you."

"I get carsick when I read."

"Try some music, geekazoid!"

"Bunny!" Spike chastised. "Let him be his own man, will you?"

"'Man'? Hahahahaha!" She pointed at her little brother. "'Man'."

Ian stuck his tongue out at her and turned his head. She bonked him with a drumstick.

"Oi." Spike snapped his fingers toward the back seat as he parked the Porsche in the driveway. "Hand 'em over. Now."

Chance showed him her empty hands, magician style. "Gone."

"Those sticks are not to be used as--" Distracted by a glance at his wife, Spike went quiet. "...weapons."

Bathed in golden afternoon sunlight, Buffy's hair tumbled over her face as she unlatched her seatbelt, and it occurred to him why she was being so mindful about it.

He covered her hand with his, and she looked up at him.

He slid her hair out of her eyes and breathed in. "Love you."

She kissed his palm. "Love you more."

"Guys?" Chance said, knocking on the seat. "Are you coming in to Gramma's house too, or are you just gonna sit here holding hands and being generally gross all day?"

"Gob up, bratty." Spike pulled Buffy close for a kiss. "Get out if you can't take the heat."

"Ugh," Chance said, opening the car door, but staying to add, "Why can't you be more like Xan and Anya? Jesse told me they never do it."

"Sick," muttered Ian, and got out to grab his bag in the trunk.

"You're supposed to be glad that we like each other," Buffy said.

"According to who? Because I so did not participate in that survey."

Ian hrumphed quietly before shutting the trunk, "According to whom, stupid."

"Whatevs." The Harris' minivan rolled in and Chance flashed a peace sign. "Later, skaters."

"And you're worried he's gonna sound like me," Spike said, shaking his head in disdain. "You've got to stop teaching her those early '90s colloquialisms, love."

"I'm not! It's all coming back, or something. And by the by, I never said 'later, skater' in my life. ...I don't think. God I hope not."

"Right. They're gone." He squeezed her hip. "Let's have a quickie."

"Why don't we..." Buffy caressed his face and said, voice low and flirty, "get the food out of the back and say hello to Mom and Dad instead?"

"How about..." their foreheads touched and he walked his fingers down to the hem of her dress, "we split the difference, you suck my dick and we call it a night?"

"Nice try," she said, pecked his lips, and got out of the car.

* * *

"Grandpa!" Ian shot through the living room, a tiny blond blur.

"Hello, Ian!" Giles crouched down for a hug. "How did you find the Asimov?"

"It was really good, I read it three times." He took The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science out of his knapsack. "I was reading a story of his too, and it made me wonder. Do you think if you walked from the light to the dark side of the moon it would suddenly go black? Or is it sort of like twilight first, and then it gets darker and darker?"

"That's an excellent question, Ian. I would assume it would be a gradual change, like on earth, but then again there is no atmosphere; perhaps--"

"Let's consult your books!"

"Well, we've packed them all for the renovation, but let's see what we can't dig up."

Spike watched with idle curiosity as his son came to life once more in the presence of his hero: a retired librarian.

"You're really doing it," Buffy said, struck with nostalgia at the sight of the hallway, bare except for a few stacked boxes. "You're really tearing the house down."

"Summers-Hart Enterprises made an offer we couldn't refuse," Joyce said, "what with it costing us absolutely nothing. Y'know, besides signing it over to you."

"You're demolishing my happy childhood memories, Spike."

"'Happy'? That what you're going with now?" He pecked her pouty lip and took her coat to hang. "Don't blame me, blame your girlfriend, he's the one doing the demo."

"I heard that," Xander said, entering the house. "And I thought I was your girlfriend."

"Piss off."

"Okay," Buffy said, "maybe not so much 'happy' as, you know, relentlessly eventful."

"Definitely relentless," Joyce agreed, rubbing her daughter's shoulder.

"Excuse me?" Chance horned her way between them. "But how can the first three years of my life not be the happiest memory ever? Seriously."

"Silly Bunny." Buffy pulled at one of Chance's spirally golden curls, watching it spring back into shape. "I'm talking pre-you, when I was young and self-absorbed and when did you put pink and black in your hair?"

"Um. Dad said it was okay."

As Chance zipped out of her grasp, Buffy swung around to Spike, who already had his hands up in defense.

"I said they were lovely colors. Didn't say anything about hair."

"Welcome to the teen years," Joyce said, and added under her breath, "At least she won't be setting her high school gym on fire."

Spike arched a brow. "I wouldn't bet on that."

* * *

The gang chatted noisily in the kitchen, swapping stories and tackling various steps of food preparation like a not-so-oily machine.

For Buffy and the Slayerettes, Thanksgiving held a personal significance. A celebration of their first demonless, post-apocalyptic get-together -- their reintroduction to the Regular -- it was their very own freedom feast.

For Spike, it was something to endure, but even he had begun to accept it as a necessary rite for the general moving on of things. Plus, she always promised an especially raunchy blow job after any big family outing, so long as he smiled through the festivities. She didn't always come through, but when she did... It was worth smiling for.

"Off." Buffy slapped Spike's hand away from the antipasto platter and returned her attention to Anya and Tara's spirited pregnancy compare-off.

They were the main reason Buffy had considered trying again -- seeing her friends so glowy and excited by the news made her pine for that feeling. She'd never had a chance to really want a pregnancy, and since Spike had been pestering her for more kids all along, she knew he'd rise to the occasion. She was right, literally: Before she could even finish the phrase 'what do you think?', he'd bent her over her dojo's pommel horse, bareback.

Of course, the bloom had since worn off the rose for her friends. Tara was midway through her third trimester, and Anya, suffering very vocally as she headed into her fourth, was far from glowy.

"You think that's bad?" Anya was saying. "I can't feel my ass."

"The tenth month," Buffy empathized, "It's a doozy. I could have sworn Peanut was taking out a mortgage on my uterus. He refused to leave."

"Most fun I ever had," Spike said, stealing a cube of provolone. She smacked his hand again.

"Xander hasn't touched me in months," Anya said. "Not that I want him to. Ugh."

"Isn't she the cutest pregnant gal ever?" Xander said, hugging her and kissing her cheek.

"Get off me," Anya said. "I hate you."

"Love you too, babe."

As several conversations struck up around them, Spike rested a palm on Buffy's belly and whispered in her ear, "You're the cutest."

"Shush, Major Obvious. I thought you wanted to wait to tell."

Chance glowered at her from across the room. "Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Is there something you need to share with the group? Or, I don't know... me?"

Buffy frowned. "I don't know what you're--"

"Are you pregnant?"

The entire kitchen hushed.

She looked at Spike, who shrugged an okay, and turned back to her daughter, then the crowd in the kitchen. "Well, everyone's here. I was gonna wait until dinner, but... yeah. I am." She held his hand. "We are."

Amidst the ensuing cheer of Wow! Three babies on the way!, Chance left the room.

Buffy nudged Spike. "That bridge you mentioned?"

"Crossing it," he said, and stole another couple of pieces from the platter.

* * *

"There you are."

Chance didn't look up.

"Nibble?" When she kept silent, Spike sat beside her on the porch swing and tossed the cheese cube at a chirping finch, making it flee in terror. She didn't laugh along, and that was a first.

Spike cleared his throat and got serious. "Look, we should have told you and Ian first. I don't know why we thought--"

"Whatever. It's not like you ever tell us anything anyway."

"What's that mean?"

"I'm more grown up than you think, is all."

"Bunny. Sweetheart." He tried to catch her eye. "Something you want to know, just ask me." Unless it involves oh, I don't know, the real origin of your nickname. He really wished he could come clean -- the true stories he could tell! -- but Buffy would have his balls for breakfast. And not in a sexy way.

She chipped at her pink and black nailpolish and fought back a lump in her throat. "Do you really think I'm rotten to the core? Like you have to start over 'cause me and Peanut aren't good enough?"

"What? No! God, no!" He pulled her close. "We're just kidding when we say things like that. Your mother and I adore you. We did this because we're so bloody proud of you and your brother, we want to see who else we can make."

After a moment, she said, "Lame."

"Hey." He shook her gently, brought her hand to his heart. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me. That is no lie."

He felt her soften.

"You're my miracle, and Ian's my boy, and this baby is in no way going to replace either one of you. All right?"

She sniffled. "My ears hurt."

"What's that, baby?"

"Chance!" Xander's twelve year old, Jesse, shouted from the street as he careened across it. "You bring your board, man? This street is tight!"

"Fresh asphalt, beeyotch!" As she got up to join him, she said in Spike's direction, "It better not be a girl."

More to come...

"I can't get over it," Willow said, passing Buffy a dish to dry. "Three new kids in the family! And one of them will be mine! Or, you know, not directly mine, more like Tara's and some anonymous sperm donor's, but I'll be her second Mom..."

"Willow," Tara said. "She's totally yours."

"I know. I'll get used to saying that."

Buffy asked, "Have you decided on a name yet?"

"I think we're going with Delilah," Tara said, smiling at her wife. "Willow's choice."

"Oh, that's so pretty! I wish Spike was into pretty names. Whenever I ask him, it's punk rock pioneer this, godfather of no wave that. Before we settled on Ian, I had to rule out, let's see..." She looked heavenward and counted off the names as she dried a dish. "Ramone, Iggy, Sid, Stiv, Dez, Clash, and what was the other one? Oh, Jimmy Jazz."

Willow laughed. "Not so matchy with his personality."

"I don't know," Tara said. "Iggy could work."

"Of course by that time we were already calling him Peanut," Buffy said, "so it was kinda moot... until now."

"He's over the Peanut, huh?"

She nodded. "The time came that he no longer wanted to be synonymous with a tiny fruit. Can you blame him?"

"He's the cutest thing, Buffy. With his glasses and his books and his serious face?"

"I know! Don't you just want to squeeze him and call him Peanut and shelter him from the harsh cruel world?"

"It's hard to let go, huh?"

"So hard," she said with a sigh. "I want to time-machine him back to ten years old and just... keep him there, you know? You saw how close we used to be; now I'm lucky if he glances in my direction. I know that's a normal boy thing, but he's getting all mini-Giles too, and if you haven't noticed, Spike and I aren't so much with the brains as we are with the brawn. He has no one to relate to at home."

"Maybe we can come by more often. I got a little spark out of him when we talked nanotechnology at dinner."

"Would you? Oh, Will, that would be so great! But I know how busy you are with your teaching and lecturing schedule, and your writing, I can't ask you to--"

"I'll make time. You're family, Buffy! We help each other."

Buffy smiled at her, then at Tara. "You got a good one."

"Don't I know it," Tara said.

"So, if Spike pretty much named Ian and Chance," Willow said, sudsing up another dish, "the next one is yours, right?"

"It better be! Otherwise we'll end up with a Sheena, or an Exene or a Siouxsie Sioux. I already told him I draw the line at Palmolive."

"Palmolive?" Tara asked. "The dishwashing liquid?"

"No, the drummer in the Slits. I hate that I know this." Buffy was drowned out by the racket of skateboard wheels rolling on tile, courtesy of her daughter. "Hey! No skating in the house! And will you eat already? Your dinner's cold."

"Nice, Mom." Chance picked up her board. "You're officially ninety."

Willow begged to differ. "What ninety year old can name-check obscure punk rock drummers?"

"One that lives with me and Dad." She took her practice drumsticks out of her jacket and assaulted the countertop, threw one up in the air and deftly caught it. "It's pretty much all we talk about."

Baffled, Willow said to Tara, "It's like some people are just born cool."

"Grampa said we could skate inside 'cause they're tearing the house down."

"Fine," Buffy said. "But I'm heating this up and you're going to eat it."

Chance looked at her congealing supper dish, nose wrinkling. "Do I have to eat the meat parts?"

"Bunny, you love meat. It's the veggies you hate." She set the microwave in motion.

"I like veggies okay. Can I eat the rest of this salad instead?"

Buffy tilted her head. "You didn't happen to notice a big slimy pod under your bed last night, did ya?"

Jesse skated in, flipping his bangs out of his face. "You should have seen the jump she just did out there, Aunt Buffy! It was like, Fshooooo!" He stopped short to stuff a cold turkey slice and a tuft of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

"Ewww," said Chance. He grinned, letting it all ooze through his teeth, and she giggled.

"That's great, but it's dark out, you guys. No more fshooo-ing. Not either of you!" Buffy called after him as he skated out of the room.

"Gotta feel sorry for the new kid," Chance said. "By the time it's my age you'll be even older than ninety and even more uptight than you are now."

"Hey, are you looking to get grounded? Take a step back and reassess."

"Why don't you take a step back, Mom. You were a teenager once, weren't you?"

"That has nothing to do with--"

"You must remember what it's like. Staying out after dark, getting 'jiggy with it' in your roller blades, necking at the drive-thru movies," she put her skateboard onto the island and added casually as she spun the wheels, "burning down the gym?"

"You mean 'drive-in movies', and that was way before my -- What did you just say?"

"Oh, nothing. Just, when we got here today, Gramma said, 'At least she won't be setting her high school gym on fire', wink wink, as in 'you did that'."

Buffy laughed nervously, and covered, "That's just a figure of speech, honey!"

"Yeah," Willow laughed with her. "Hello? I was at that school. Maybe she never told you, but your mom was an awesome cheerleader. Boy, did she know how to fill those bleachers with fiery pep! Okay so I'm gonna go check out that movie they're watching in the other room! Come on, Tara!"

Alone with her daughter, Buffy took the dinner plate out of the microwave. "How did you even hear that?"

"I don't know. I just could." She stared at the meat, dots of blood on its surface. "Lately, it feels like... I don't know, that I can do lots of things better, like--"

"Angel?"

Chance followed her mother's distracted gaze out the kitchen window. "Never mind. We'll talk later." She dropped her skateboard on the floor. "You can't hear me, so now might be a good time to tell you I took five dollars from your purse last week and lost it on a shell game at school--"

Buffy tuned in. "What?"

"Nothing," Chance said, and pointed at the back door. "Look, it's Angel."

"Hey, you came!" Buffy greeted him with a hug. "What brings you this... Oh." He wasn't alone. So very not alone. "Faith. Wow. It's been--"

"Yeah," Faith said, arms crossing. "We kinda hooked up again. That copasetic?"

"Of course, why wouldn't it be?" Buffy hoped her tone was convincing. She didn't want to reveal in any way, to anyone, that Faith's presence brought up all kinds of uncomfortable feelings. "Come on in, both of you. There's still plenty of food and drink."

Faith blocked contact. "I don't hug."

"Right," Buffy said as her ex shot her a silent apology. "How presumptuous of me."

"Is that the kid I helped you save?" Faith said, pointing at Chance. "Man, you're like a whole little person now."

"Helped you save?" Chance asked. "Who are you?"

"Sweetie, don't be rude. Faith is an old friend. Last time you saw her you were really little, and she..." she kicked her mind awake and lied, "drove us to the hospital that time you had a hundred and three fever." She turned to the adults. "Funny how time flies, huh?"

"Hilarious," Faith said.

"She's a beauty." Angel unblinkingly regarded her daughter, who immediately fixed her eyes on her skateboard to hide her blush. "Oh! I almost forgot." He patted his pockets and produced a pink envelope. "Happy birthday, Chance."

After carefully opening the card, she lost all sense of decorum. "Two hundred bucks! Sweet!"

Buffy swiped it from her and stuffed it into her own hip pocket. "This goes into your savings account. Minus the five you owe me." At her protest, she held up a finger. "Don't make me 'young lady' you."

Chance scoffed, glanced sidelong at Angel and skated out of the room.

"Oi, no skateboarding in the--" Spike paused in the doorway, Ian reading a book on his shoulders. "Who called the Superfriend meeting?"

"Spike, be nice. You know Angel has a standing invitation."

Angel nodded a hello at Spike. Just as noncommittally, Spike nodded back.

As Faith helped herself to a beer, she snorted, "You weren't complaining at the last Superfriend meeting."

"Whoa, children present," Buffy whispered, "some with ...oddly bionic hearing. Can we at least pretend to be adults?"

"What the hell is that supposed to--?"

Angel cleared his throat.

Faith let it go and laughed. "I'm only playin', B, loosen up!" She leaned in and winked. "Just, not as much as last time, right?"

Buffy breathed in and mentally counted to not stabbing her. What could have possibly possessed Angel to start seeing Faith again? Was he that lonely after Cordelia moved on?

Angel carried a large box in from the back porch. "Hey, Ian. Want to help me put this baby together?"

"Wow!" Ian hopped off of Spike and threw his book aside. "An Andromeda ProScope X-Ten? Is that for me?"

"All yours, Champ."

Ian beamed at Angel, deciding that Champ was the best nickname he'd ever heard.

Angel explained to Buffy, "I missed his last two. Hope it's okay with you. And ...Spike."

Spike shelved his prickling emotions for Ian's sake, and told himself, as he always did in his rival's presence, I got the girl, she loves me, I won. Pillock. "Yeah. That's fine. Nice of you."

* * *

"Chance?" Jesse stood behind her, curious and a little spooked. "A-are you okay?"

"I don't know." She opened and closed her fists. Opened, closed. Muscles. Bones. Cartilage. Blood. "My body..." She breathed; tried to breathe as her heartbeat slowed. "This is so weird. I can... feel it."

He touched her shoulder. "Did, um... Was it something I did?"

"No, dummy, it's..." She sat down on her mother's old bed, hearing snippets of every ambient noise and conversation throughout the house. Feeling faint, she put her elbows on her thighs and cradled her head. "Something's happening to me."

* * *

Spike glanced out the back door at Buffy, sitting on the deck railing, chit-chatting with Angel as he and Ian put that sodding telescope together. Could have easily bought that for him too, just... didn't know he wanted one.

Angel. He'd forgotten about the open Thanksgiving invite his wife had extended years back -- without asking him first, of course. Taking for granted that he'd be fine with it, being that they were so solid and secure in their marriage.

He rolled his eyes.

Hell if he didn't deserve the blow job of the century for putting up with this shit.

Noticing the pungent scent of garlic, he felt a tug on his pantleg.

"Cake?" said one of the twins, offering a plate of something brown and mulchy, with red icing and whole garlic cloves wedged inside. "We made it ourself."

"Thanks... Hallie?" She nodded. Spike was never sure which was which.

"That'll be twenty dollars," she said, holding the plate hostage.

He eyeballed the girl's father.

"Hal," Xander said, taking the plate, "What do we say?"

"Extortion isn't nice," Hallie said, dejected.

"That's right. Now go play." He added quickly, "Not with fire!"

When she was gone, Spike said, "You're not gonna make me eat this, are you?"

"No, but I was thinking of forcing some down Angel's throat."

He got a little misty-eyed. "I sort of love you."

"I always suspected." He squeezed Spike's shoulder. "Come on. I gots the herbals for what ails ya."

"I take it back," he said, overcome with grateful. "Not 'sort of'. Head over bloody heels."

"Daddy?" Chance was in the doorway, looking slight and scared.

"We'll talk business later," Xander said, and left them alone.

"You okay, Bunny? Got a tummy ache?"

She shook her head no. "You said, um... You said I could ask you anything, right?"

"Anything at all, gorgeous." He picked her up, put her onto the kitchen island and gave her his full attention.

"Okay." She took a deep breath. "Ever since my birthday, I've been feeling kinda... strange? And tonight, I--"

"You coming down with something?" He touched her forehead. "You're a little clammy..."

"Not sick strange. Will you listen to me? Different strange. Like, my body, it's... I can feel it... changing, and--"

"Buffy!" he bellowed, gripped by male panic, "Yourdaughterhassomethingtoaskyou!"

"Dad--!"

As Buffy rushed in from the back porch, he put Chance down and shoved her forward. "You two need to have some girl talk."

Buffy frowned. "Is this about Grant Lorman?"

"Ew, and no! You guys are so dumb! Just forget it!"

Spike stared at Chance, a horrible realization dawning: his little girl wasn't so little anymore. She had... a figure.

When the hell did that happen? And more importantly, "Who the hell is Grant Lorman?"

"He's nobody! God, just, both of you leave me alone!"

As she ran off in a huff, Buffy held Spike back. "That's girl talk for 'leave me alone'."

"Did you see that?" Spike pointed in her direction. "She's got--!" He gesticulated wildly in front of his body. "And--!"

"Yes, honey. For a few months now. And that's only the beginning."

"Bloody hell. Bloody..." He didn't know what to do with himself.

"That sounded like fun," Joyce said, entering the kitchen. "Parenting is easy, isn't it?"

"Oh, go ahead," Buffy said. "Say 'I told you so'."

"I would, but it's more fun when you admit it. Anyway, I've been sent to recruit heavy lifters. Everything needs to go down to the basement for the reno, and here you all are."

"Right," Spike said, opportunity to get lit knocking. And now, by god, he really needed it. "I'll get Xander."

"What am I, chopped weak female?"

"You're pregnant," he reminded her.

"Who's pregnant?" Faith asked, ambling in with an empty beer. "You? Again?"

"Yes, Faith." Her gaze stayed on Spike. "And I'm apparently infirm, too."

"Jeez, it's like a regular baby factory around here."

"You want to argue, that's fine," he dared Buffy. "Night's just gonna get longer."

She relented with a sigh. "I don't want to carry boxes anyway."

"I didn't really think you did."

"I'm going to go be with my son as he sees his first planet. Or, the moon or ...whatever you can see with that thing."

"Have fun." With your ex-boyfriend.

"I will," she said, and shut the door behind her a little too hard.

"Boxes?" said Faith, popping open another beer. "I'll help."

* * *

"Nice ear muffs."

Chance didn't look up. "Go away."

Jesse stepped into the empty closet, shut the door and sat across from her. "What's wrong?"

Eyes wet, she shook her head. "You're gonna think I'm a freak."

"Why would I think that?" He nudged her sneaker with his. "You're the coolest girl I know."

She wiped her tears on her sleeve. "It's pitch dark in here, right? You can't see me at all."

"Right..."

"Except I can see you. I can see you perfectly."

"Yeah, right. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Seven. Nine. Four." She nudged him. "Hey, not polite."

"Wow." He put his hands down. "Night vision. You could play outside all night."

She stared at him. That's all he had to say? "Do you want to kiss me again?"

"Uh-huh," he answered, voice cracking.

* * *

Spike dropped a stack of heavy boxes on the basement floor. "Bloody Angel with his bloody telescope. Bloody children and their... bloody growing up. Bloody hell."

"Who's a grumpy boy? You are! Yes you are!" Xander glanced at the stairwell, lit a joint and took a hit before passing it over. "Whistle while you work, buddy."

Spike took a long, deep toke and held it in. "Yeah. That's better."

"Found a guy in Thorndale who grows his own. Oz's nephew." He laughed, white smoke escaping from his nose. "Grammy-winner Oz."

"Yeah," Spike said, and sat on a box. "Good for him."

"Who's baking?" Faith said from the landing, one box on each side of her hips.

"Shhhh!" Xander waved his hands around.

"Sorry," Faith said, amused, and traipsed down the steps. "Well? Let's see what you got, Quickdraw."

"Hey look," Xander said defensively, "that was my first time, okay, it's not really fair to judge based on--"

"Wasn't talking to you."

Spike looked up at the ceiling with a strained smile.

"Oh." Xander understood. "Oh, right. Ha. Haha." Spike sent him a glare. "I mean, no big -- happens to the best of us, man."

Shaking his head in disdain, Spike stared at the floor. She could rake up all the muck she wanted, but he wasn't going to play.

Faith sucked on the joint, thought for a second and said, "Mine's better."

"Hey, this is good stuff," Xander said.

She unrolled a sandwich-sized bag. "Pharmaceutical grade. Made for a man, strong enough for a slayer."



More to come...

"You're doing drugs in Buffy's mom's house?"

Willow, who'd gone searching for Xander at his wife's behest, was aghast over the scene she'd just intruded upon: Xander, Spike, and Faith, loitering and laughing amidst a cloud of skunky smoke. The windows were open, but did they really think no one would smell it? And also, why didn't they ask her if she wanted any?

"A little louder, love?" Spike said, hand at his ear. "My children didn't hear you that time."

"Technically, it's the company's house," Xander grumbled.

"Still."

Tickled, Faith said, "Are you gonna narc on us, Red?"

"Pssh," Willow said, hopping off the last step. "Of course not. I'm... down."

"Oh yeah?" Faith kicked a box her way. "Take a seat, have a toke."

"Don't pressure your peers, man," Xander said. "This isn't her thing."

"How do you know it's not my thing?" Willow said, defensive. "Maybe it is my thing. I've been to Amsterdam, you know. I brownied with the locals."

"I remember Amsterdam, Will. I was there. I.E., not your thing..."

"So, okay, I barfed a little. Into the canal. But I'm also allergic to wheat flour and that totally could have been it." They stared at her. "Well? What are ya waiting for? Spark that spleef."

"'Spark that...?' Here. Don't talk, just inhale."

The basement door opened and everyone panicked as Giles' voice blared from above: "Would you lot like some ...beer?"

As Willow lapsed into a coughing fit, Spike extinguished the evidence and the other two stood up and tried to look busy.

He poked his head down the stairwell. "Is that grass I smell?"

"Wow," Faith muttered. "Just when I thought it couldn't get any more square."

He came down the steps. "You're smoking grass and you didn't tell me?"

"Sorry, G-Dawg," Xander said. "Sometimes we forget how badass you were."

Giles handed the six-pack to Spike, took the joint and expertly lit up.

"Are," he corrected, and passed it along.

* * *

"Things have been good," Buffy said. "Really good. I'm pregnant again."

"I noticed." Angel remembered that Ian was there, and probably wouldn't understand how he could sense a fetal heart beat. "I mean, I heard. Congrats."

"Mommy! I see it! I can see the dark side!"

"You can?" Buffy pet his curly locks. "What does it look like?"

"See for yourself," Ian said.

"Ooh," she said, looking through. "Dark. Kinda creepy."

"What if there was someone who could survive there? Like, if a person couldn't feel the cold and didn't have to breathe oxygen or have to eat food..."

Buffy straightened, tittered nervously. "There's no such thing, sweetie."

"Yeah, but what if there was?"

She widened her eyes at Angel. He winked at her.

"Hey, Ian," Angel crouched beside him and looked up at the stars, "have you heard that this coming December, there's gonna be a rare astronomical occurrence that won't repeat for millennia? The Mayans believed it would mark the end of the world -- or, the dawning of a new age, depending on how you look at it."

Fascinated, Ian stared at him. "What do you think?"

"Well--" Angel felt Buffy's apprehension, and stood up. "Sorry. Too macabre?"

"Look through the telescope, honey." She told Angel, "It's okay. We just try to keep the apocalypse talk to a minimum around here."

"Right," he said, chastened. "Like I said, I'm no good at this."

"You are!" She pointed at Ian and mouthed the words, 'He loves you.'

He murmured to her, "You know, he reminds me a little of Spike when I first met him."

"He does?"

"I do?"

"Telescope, honey."

Glancing at Ian, Angel said quietly, "He never told you about... what he was like?"

Spike had once drunkenly revealed to her that before he was turned, he was a lovestruck poet and a 'bit of a Mama's boy', but that was where the share had ended. "Not entirely. Maybe you can fill in a few blanks for me sometime."

His gaze slid down her body and back to her eyes. "I'd be happy to."

Oh, god. Did he think she was flirting with him? And was he flirting with her in front of her child? She closed her body language, cleared her throat. "So... You and Faith again."

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry about... her." He laughed as he said 'her'.

"Don't be sorry! Faith will be Faith."

"She insisted on coming, and she's got no family, y'know? I couldn't say no... And there's nothing serious between us, it's just..."

She held her hands up. "I get it. No judgment."

He looked at the house. "I wonder what she's up to in there."

"Oh, you know. Probably making everyone feel bad about themselves."

* * *

"I feel so good right now," Xander said. "This is the best I have ever felt in my entire life. Thank you, kind purveyor of happiness."

"Don't mention it," Faith said.

Coughing a little less explosively this time, Willow passed the joint to Giles.

"We should go back upstairs soon," Giles said, and puffed twice. "Before the wives notice us gone."

"Yeah," agreed Spike, Xander, Willow and Faith, but no one moved from their cardboard seats.

"I'm gonna miss this house," Willow said. "The way it was."

"I can't wait to tear it to its bleeding hinges," Spike said, just as wistfully.

"You have no soul," she said.

"Actually, I do. They say it comes with the whole 'being human' package."

"Still. If you keep tearing everything down, there's gonna be nothing left of the old Sunnydale we know and love."

"And good riddance to it. Who wants to live in the past?" Granted, he'd spent the entire previous night revisiting the past, but that was different. That was for fun. Dirty, nasty, deliciously wrong fun... He should really find someone to mend that dress. Or better yet, he could get it replicated. In bulk. An entire closetful of Little Miss Lost-and-Helpless-and-Not-Yet-Deflowered-by-My-Blockhead-Boyfriend dresses...

"I don't want to live in the past, I just want to know that it's there to visit."

He snapped out of his daydream. "I'm building a better future for your bloody sprog. Deal with it."

Trying and failing to give him the raspberry, Willow said, "My lips feel funny." Something about this was hilarious to her. Giles laughed at her, and they giggled together.

"Hey, that's right," said Faith, handing a newly-rolled second joint to Spike. "Angel said you've been playing this town like some kinda Monopoly Board. You're loaded now. Guess B chose the right vamp after all."

"She's not in it for the money," he said meaningfully, and flipped his Zippo.

"But I am," Xander said, and batted his eyelashes. "When do I get a Park Place mansion, Rich Uncle Pennybags?"

"When you can afford it."

"Hey, I put blood, sweat and tears into S.H.E. Well, sweat. And I might've nail-gunned my thumb once or twice. Never once cried, let's get that straight. Still, don't you think I deserve a little sumpin sump for my troubles?"

"I pay you six figures with full benefits, and I employ your wife though I have no idea what she actually does."

"Right." Xander cleared his throat. "Good deal, boss."

"Remember when it all ended," Willow reminisced, "and we had a pizza party here? With like, half the army?"

"Yeah, and I almost went to jail half-naked?" Faith said with sarcastic pep. "That was super-duper."

"Yeah," Willow agreed dreamily. "I mean, life was exhausting back then, and you know, terrifying, but I kinda miss it sometimes."

"Here here," Giles said. "It was sort of thrilling."

"Yeah," Xander said. "It kinda was."

Spike scoffed. "You lot are pathetic."

They looked at him.

"Everything this big wide world has to offer, and you four are pining over your glory days of derring-do?"

"Hey, don't file me in with these losers." Faith passed the joint to Willow. "No offense."

"See, Faith knows how to live in the moment. Life is thrilling, people! With or without monsters."

"Please," Willow huffed. "You were like a kid in a candy store when that necromancer reanimated all the vamps of Sunnydale. Don't try to deny it."

"It was fun! I got to kill things again. Would I want to do that every bloody day for the rest of my life? Fuck no. I have kids to protect. I have a golden goddess waiting up for me every night in lacy underthings. Killing doesn't give me purpose. Being there for my family, that's my purpose."

Xander had an important question: "What kind of lacy underthings?"

Spike took a toke. "Mostly just the bottoms."

"I love her." When he was whapped upside the head, he said, "As a friend!"

Faith shrugged. "She's a MILF."

"She's always had this strong-yet-wholesome-yet-sexy vibe," Willow concurred. "It's a hot combination."

Giles spoke up. "Might we refrain from undressing my stepdaughter with our minds?"

"Yeah," Spike said. "Leave the undressing to me. You've all got dreamboats of your own; you don't see me disrespecting them."

"Hmph," said Faith, and he glanced at her.

"Admiring someone's appeal isn't disrespectful," said Willow. "And anyway, if you're all Respectful Responsible Domestic Bliss Guy, what are you doing down here with us?"

He sighed. "Angel's up there."

"Does he still get to you?" She squeezed his knee. "You're the one she's crazy about. I know this for a fact."

"I know. It's just... I hate the way she acts around him. Like he's a puppy dog with three bloody legs."

"That third leg?" Faith said with a wink. "Not a leg. Oh, but you know that, don'tcha, Spike?"

Everyone paused, fearing his reaction.

He was a little too stoned to get worked up. Besides, it wasn't like the gang didn't already know -- that little incident nearly destroyed his marriage. Two whole years of on-again, off-again agony before they were finally able to put it behind them. "You have something to say Faith, say it."

"I got nothing else to say," she said, and sucked in smoke, "about that time I made your wife come on my tongue while Angel fucked you in the ass."

"Oh, bloody hell," Giles said as Faith burst into laughter.

"Hey!" Spike told the group, "That's not all that happened, all right?"

"No," Faith elaborated, "Angel fucked Buffy, I fucked Spike, a fuck fuck here, a fuck fuck there, it was a fuckfest!"

"Okay!" Willow said. "That's enough nostalgia for today! Let's talk about the future. Three babies, wow!"

"Yeah, let's not dredge up the Great Peach Caper," Xander said. "It was a million years ago."

Spike pointed emphatically at Willow. "And it was her bloody peach!"

"I didn't tell you to eat my magic peaches!"

"You could've put a warning label on them!"

"Warning," Xander said. "May cause intensely disturbing foursomes."

"All over my house, no less." Giles had a giggle fit, and wiped a tear from his eye. "Oh, that was awful. Just awful."

"Tell me about it," Willow said with a shudder. "I never did magic again."

"Huh," Xander said, turning the joint butt in his hand. "I sure hope Chance's magic ears didn't work just then."

Spike frowned. "What d'you mean, magic ears?"

* * *

"What's this?" Jesse had found the tissue paper stuffed under Chance's ear muffs.

"Nothing." She pried his hands from her head and placed them over her breasts. "Over the shirt only."

Not looking to jinx this windfall, he dropped the subject and kissed her again.

Voices from everywhere screamed in her head.

-- hell happened to Xander? No, out the window, out the -- I'll get you, my pretty, and your -- Cake for sale, five dollars a slice! -- texted him like, four ti-- I can feel her. -- be playing tricks on -- her bloody peach! -- swear I just saw something out -- Tick ticky tock.

Jupiter, Mom! Jupiter!

* * *

"Jupiter, really? Wow!" Buffy smiled at Angel. "Getting him away from this thing, that's gonna be the challenge."

He returned the smile, then looked worried. "Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"I think Chance might be calling you."

"Oh? I'll go see what she wants."

* * *

"So, what, you think she got vamp powers or something?" Faith asked.

"Residual vampiric powers seem so unlikely." Giles shook his head. "Then again, so was everything else about her conception. It's possible she's merely experiencing a difficult puberty."

"Oi, keep it down, you two. What if she can hear us?"

"Perhaps it's time she finally knew. After all, the longer you wait, the angrier she'll be."

"You know it, I know it," Spike said. "But try telling Buffy that. Wants her to be 'normal' as long as bloody possible, whatever the bloody hell that means."

"B's still wishing on that star? What a load."

Spike agreed with a look.

"Whoa," Willow said. "I think you need to cut me off. I could swear that cardboard box is glowing."

"It is glowing," Giles said, head atilt.

"Why would a box glow?" Xander asked.

Spike and Giles frowned at the box, exchanged a glance, stared at the box again, then back at each other. Eyes widening at once, they scrambled toward it, pushed the other boxes out of the way and spun it around.

The box was marked:

DISH TOWELS
PLACEMATS
NAPKINS
ANGEL'S SOUL

"Oh," Giles said, a chill cleaving down his spine. "Dear God."

The crystal he'd packed less than a month ago. The one that stayed dormant as long as Angel's soul was intact... was glowing.

"Buffy!" Spike tried to shout, but his voice was no louder than a whisper.

They turned to see Faith standing behind Xander and Willow, pressing her thumbs into each of their necks until they dropped to the floor, unconscious. "Do you know how long that box was glowing? Jesus Christ, people."

"Bu...ff--"

"Yeah, she's not gonna be able to hear you with your throat all closed up like that. And moving could be problematic. Oh, did I forget to mention?"

Ridges appearing in her forehead, elongated fangs cutting into her lower lip, Faith licked the blood and grinned.

"We're ba-ack."




One more chapter to go...




A/N: Confused about the glowing box? Refer to this passage please.

Wondering if you missed something re: the "Great Peach Caper"? You didn't -- this is the first and last you'll hear of it. Like the "night that necromancer reanimated all the vamps of Sunnydale", it's just one of the many things that happened in the thirteen years since we saw them last. (And while it has obvious similarities to my fic Peaches and Herbs, that fic is not part of this 'verse -- and the peach doesn't have *quite* the same properties. The thought of them all getting worked up over an enchanted peach just made me laugh.)

"Bunny!"

Buffy couldn't believe what she'd found in her old closet: her daughter and Xander's son, attached at the lips -- and lap?

"What are you doing?" Buffy grabbed Chance by the wrist and yanked her out of the closet and off of Jesse, who wisely bolted from the room. She snatched Chance's ear muffs. "Were you making out with him? He's practically your cousin!"

Chance unplugged the tissue paper from her ears and tamed her tousled hair. "Key word 'practically', meaning 'not'!"

"Even so, you are only thirteen and he's only twelve and oh my god, your jeans are unbuttoned!"

Cheeks red, she fumbled with her fly. "It's not what it looks like, we were just--"

"Kissing! And groping! God, you called for me and I thought I heard you crying in here--"

"I didn't call for you!"

"You didn't?"

"Do I look like I have a death wish?"

Buffy frowned. "That's weird. Angel said--"

The lights went off and the house powered down.

Standing in darkness, Buffy put her hands on her hips and said brightly, "This night just couldn't get more fun. What next? Earthquake? Flood? A plague of locusts?"

A scream rang out from the back yard, and they both recognized the voice.

"Peanut?"

* * *

"Peanut!" Spike tried to shout, but it was no use. He was trapped in this nightmare, zonked and mute, and he could only lie there as Faith barricaded the basement door, destroyed the circuit board and sat on his back to rifle through his pockets.

And now, Angelus had his son. His delicate, diminutive, soft-hearted son. So much like him, and he'd never even told him so...

"Where is that lighter... Here it is." He heard her flip it open and puff on the last of the joint. "Mm. You gotta admit kids, this is some real good shit. Warlock said it's all fun and games 'til someone panics. 'Course, I can panic all I want, doesn't work on vamps." She bent down to Spike's ear. "For you, though? It's only gonna get worse. And then you'll drop dead, never knowing what happened to your wife or your rotten little rugrats." She grabbed a hunk of his hair and raised his head, then said before letting go, "Spoiler alert! They die."

* * *

Chance followed her mother to the master bedroom's window.

"No." As Buffy peered down at the deck, seeing nothing but a telescope, she lost it. "Not now. Not now! Anfuckinggelus, how the hell did you...?" She opened the window. "Peanut! Ian!"

"Mom... What's going on?"

Buffy shut the window and took her by the shoulders. "Stay here and do not move. Do you hear me? Do not move a muscle and don't let anyone into this room."

Chance nodded, and Buffy locked the door before she sped off.

* * *

Spike didn't feel much pain when his chin split on the cement floor. He was too distracted by rage, helplessness, regret ...panic. He had to stop panicking somehow. Buffy's handling this. Buffy's already staked the wanker; Ian is fine, everyone's okay, god who am I kidding...

"Hey! Watcher!" Faith dismounted to kick Giles in the head. "Don't pass out yet. You got more to watch." Standing before them, she opened a small flask and spilled an arc of black powder around them. "You surprised me tonight, Mr. G. Willow too. I knew Cheech and Chong here liked the ganj, but I didn't figure you and Red for easy bait."

The flame from Spike's Zippo bringing out the yellow in her eyes, she said, "Four down, one knocked-up Buffy to go."

Spike made a desperate whimper.

"I'd stay and drain all your blood, but I like mine virgin. Keeps my skin soft. And knowin' Angel, they won't stay virgins for long -- right, Quick?"

She winked at him, tossed the Zippo, and the powder arc ignited into a wall of flame, trapping the four of them in a corner.

Yeah. Not likely to stop panicking now.

There was a rattle at the basement door; someone was trying to get in. He hoped for everyone's sake it was Buffy. She needed to stake this bitch. And he needed to tear Angelus limb from bloody limb.

It was obvious what had happened. Angel's curse must have been reinstated somehow, Faith made him a little too happy; he lost his soul, made her a vampire...

Spike stared, agog, as Faith did something Angelus could never do.

Or not...

* * *

"Spike! Spike, goddammit!" Buffy sprinted across the darkened dining room and pulled at the basement door, then banged on it. "Get your pot-baked ass up here now!"

"What's happening?" Joyce asked as Buffy ran out onto the deck. "Was that Peanut I just heard?"

"Ian!" Buffy shouted into the darkness. "Angelus, you fucking coward!"

"Angelus?" Joyce repeated. "Oh my god."

"Tara!" She spun around at the people filling the kitchen, two of them holding lit candles. "Uninvite spell, do you remember it?"

"I... Kind of," Tara said, shaken. "I uh, need herbs, and, well, Willow--"

"Find her; do whatever you can, fast. Stakes. I need stakes and a crossbow, and an axe. A huge, razor-sharp fucking axe so I can lop off his blocky, psychotic head once and for all. What are you waiting for?!"

"We... we don't keep that stuff here anymore, Buffy. If anything it would be in the boxes in the basement--"

"What's burning?"

The battery-powered smoke detector sounded.

"It's downstairs!" Tara shouted, rattling at the barricaded basement door. "There's a fire in the basement!"

"Xander?" Anya hurried forward, and stopped midway. "Perfect! My water broke!" She held on to a chair. "Buffy, hurry up and break down the damn door!"

"Everybody stand back." The children gasped as their sweet Aunt Buffy tore the granite countertop off of the kitchen island and heaved it at the door. It broke through the barricade and crumbled at the bottom of the staircase. Billows of smoke filled the kitchen, everyone began to cough and the twins, clasped to each other, began to cry. "Open the windows, stay close to the floor, but don't go outside."

"Extinguisher," Joyce said, throwing it to her, and Buffy barreled down the steps. It reeked of burning plastic and cardboard and she couldn't see anything past the flames.

"Tara! The extinguisher isn't working; it's mystical! You need to--" Suddenly, foam sprayed everywhere, the flames died, and she turned to see the witch behind her, holding a black ring. "...pull out the pin."

"Willow! Oh, god--"

Having already seen Spike and Giles, soot-covered but conscious, Buffy checked her friends' pulses. "Alive. Xander too."

"Oh, thank god."

Buffy scrambled to Spike, raised him off the floor. "What did Faith do to you? What do they want with Peanut? Where'd they take him?"

He tried to speak, but could only gurgle and direct his chin at the broken window.

"She went out the window? That doesn't help me. See, this is why you shouldn't do drugs."

He shook his head. "Fl..."

That's when they heard a chillingly familiar voice beckon:

"Come outside, little one! Come play with Mummy."

* * *

Transfixed, Chance stared at the woman hovering outside her window, a kicking, thrashing Ian in her grasp.

"Your poor baby brother," the woman said, petting his face and neck. "Pretty plates of biscuits all around, but he doesn't want them. He has a special taste." She plucked an image from his head and gasped. "It's an angel he seeks."

The woman's face morphed into a monster's, and she bared Ian's neck. "And it's an angel he'll have."

Ian whimpered, "Chance!"

"Only you can save him. Tick, ticky, tock."

The monster disappeared with her brother, and Chance snapped out of her fear. She opened the window and looked down. She could jump it, easy -- she wasn't sure what she'd do once she got there, but the house was on fire, her parents were MIA... and Ian was in trouble, now.

A dirty black boot hit her in the face from up above, and she reeled.

Faith hopped into the bedroom. "Big Momma's gonna ream me for this, but I don't really give a shit." Her face changed. "I got a wicked case of the munchies."

Chance backed away from her. "I knew there was something freaky about you."

"Way I hear it?" Faith kicked her in the stomach, and Chance landed, supine, on the bed. She lunged and pinned the girl by the shoulders. "You're the freak around here."

Sharp teeth slicing her throat, Chance used her only means of defense -- she shoved her attacker with both feet, banking on the strength of her thighs.

She didn't bank on quite so much strength, though: Limp as a crash test dummy, Faith sailed through the air, crashed through the windows, and fell to the ground below with a pop.

Stunned, Chance sat up, touching her wound. Or, what was left of it: the skin felt smooth and pain-free, and she'd stopped bleeding.

Staring at her trembling, blood-stained fingers, she whispered, "Whoa."

"They say Chance is the fool's name for fate," she heard the English lady say, tittering. "Come outside, little one! Come play with Mummy."

Then she heard Ian telling himself, "This isn't real, I can't be afraid if it's not real..."

"Oh, it's real, my pet," English lady told him. "And I'm going to make you just like me."

Eyes widening, Chance knew what she had to do. And she could do it: She was strong. She could heal. She had powers.

She stood up, balled her fists.

"You'll have to go through me first."

* * *

Willow stirred in Tara's arms. "What time is it?"

"It's that time again," Buffy said, and told Tara, "Fix Spike, then de-invite."

"Faith poisoned us," Willow realized, and Giles nodded. "With the wacky tobacky."

"Okay, um..." Tara waved a hand. "Detox."

Spike, Giles, Willow and Xander instantly puked on the floor, narrowly missing Buffy and Tara.

"Gross, but hopefully effective," Buffy said, helping Spike up. "Are you with me?"

He nodded quickly. "They can fly."

"What?"

"They can FLY."

She stared at him unblinkingly. "Oh."

"Holy Kiefer Sutherland," Xander muttered.

"She burned all the weapons boxes," Giles said, sifting through the rubble. "It's all useless. Clever chit."

"We don't have any crossbows," Buffy worried at Spike. "How do we fight flying vampires?"

"Chance! No!" Joyce yelled. "What are you doing out there?"

"Oh my god," Buffy said, and blazed a trail up the basement steps, Spike in tow.

* * *

Two vampires took to the air, Chance wedged between them. Buffy caught one by the ankle, Spike caught the other, and they swiped the sticks out of Chance's back pocket. Everyone tumbled to the lawn.

"Mom! Dad! You don't understand, I can--" Chance lost her train of thought as her parents made the bad guys explode with a single shove of a lucky drumstick. "Okay, what?"

"Are you out of your mind?" Buffy whooshed her into the house. "I told you not to leave that room!"

"What are they? How do you know how to--?"

"Later," Buffy said over Spike's attempt at an explanation. "Just don't go out there again."

Chance heard Ian sob, and spotted him at the top of a tall palm tree. "You're gonna be okay, Ian! Be strong! Don't be a baby, okay?"

Buffy frowned at her daughter. "You can see him?"

"Yeah, he's right there in Batlady's arms!" She ventured, "Can't you guys see like me?"

Buffy gave Spike an uneasy glance. "No, we can't."

Spike wrapped an arm around both of them, and they peered in that direction. "Tell me what you see, love."

"They're everywhere," Chance said quietly. "Like crows."

"How many?"

"Fifteen? Maybe more--" She tensed. "She's coming."

A dark figure came swooping down from the trees.

"Hello, Spike." Ten feet off the ground, Drusilla held a sniffling Ian. "Remember Mummy?"

"Drusilla," Spike spat, nostrils flared. "You died. You died with the rest of them."

"Ian, it's okay, baby," Buffy quietly promised her son as the ex-lovers caught up, "Momma's not gonna let anyone hurt you."

"I've always had wings, my love. Didn't I tell you that?"

Spike remembered: Big black wings to fly you away... "'Where no magic sun will find us'. You were spared."

"That's right. Got a precious giftie that day. Been makin' babies ever since; just like you. A thousand thousand now, and more each day."

Several vampires flew into formation behind her.

"Turn, never kill; that's the new order." She bared her fangs. "Not even the little children."

"Dru! That's my son! My son!"

"Trade you for a daughter." Running a long, sharp fingernail over Ian's thorax, she said, "Or does Daddy love this one the least?"

"I will not play this game with you!" Dru got a sick thrill out of making parents choose... and usually ended up killing everyone anyway.

"This one's head is full of fancy. I've always wanted my very own boy genius."

Spike pleaded, "Take me, Drusilla. Take me instead. It could be like it used to... I... I could take care of you!"

"Keep your 'care'. There's only one thing Mummy wants."

"Don't you get it, Spike?" Buffy whispered through clenched teeth. "She wants her heart."

Chance gasped, hands over her chest. "My...?"

"Your heart, special one," Drusilla cocked her head, swaying in the air. "It sings to me. Tick, ticky, tock. Tick, ticky, tock. It knows all: the truest secrets of the oldest power, bequeathed to me by the Dark Mother," she narrowed her eyes at Spike, "the day the dread Three sent her away."

"Whatever you think her heart will do for you, you're wrong," Buffy said, voice wavering. "That power died with Lamashtu. Chance is just a girl."

"'Just a girl', born of demon and slayer, disguised in furs of Dark Mother's design in the year of the rabbit. Just a girl, until the flowering of her thirteenth birthday," Drusilla said, eyes flashing. "Tick, ticky, tock."

Buffy and Spike shared a frightened look.

"Time's up." Drusilla play-growled at Chance. "Run, rabbit, run."

Ian screamed as her fingernail cut into his chest.

"Get offa him!" Chance snatched a drumstick and broke free of her parents' grasp. "You want my heart, Batface? Come and get it!"

"Chance, NO!"

The second she passed the threshold, Drusilla tossed Ian to another vampire and seized Chance in her talons.

"Oh my ears and whiskers," Drusilla laughed before shooting up into the sky, "how late it's getting!"

Buffy and Spike ran out, but were promptly surrounded by a swarm of vampires.

"Look who's come out to play," Angelus said, stepping out of the shadows and parting the mob. "Mm! This is gonna be so much fun!"

"You are so dead," Buffy promised him. "So very, very, completely dead."

"You know, I almost wish I was, putting up with your pathetic excuse for a son and your big wet 'take-me-away-from-here' eyes, all while you try to convince me how 'happy' you are." He shook his head. "Buffy, Buffy, Buffy. Don't you know I can smell what you really want?"

"He's trying to upset you," Buffy asided to her husband.

Spike kept his eyes on the surrounding ground forces. "It's working."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Buff, but I'm just not that into you anymore. You're a little too... what's the word?" He looked up, then snapped his fingers. "Old. Used. Expired. You know what kinda girl gets me hot! Young and fresh and blossoming... like your daughter."

Spike and Buffy spouted variations of the same threat: "If you so much as touch her--"

"Oh, I'm gonna have her all to myself for a good, substantial while." He breathed in deep. "Spike'll tell you. He knows how much I love breaking them in."

"You sick rutting BASTARD--!"

Angelus laughed at Spike as he tried to wring his neck, but failed on account of all the vampires holding him back.

"Everybody got out alive?" Faith zoomed down from above. "Why didn't I just snap your scrawny necks when I had the chance? Stupid love drug."

"Aww, she wuvs us," Xander taunted from inside, and Faith tried to attack him, but was magically clotheslined at the threshold. "Ha! And stay out!"

"It's alright, Faithy," Angelus said. "We got everyone we need out here. And everything we need," he pointed at the sky, "up there."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Chance screamed as she fell to earth.

"What the--!" Angelus shouted at the mob, "It's the girl, she's falling! Somebody catch her!"

Most of the surrounding vampires flew out into the center of the yard. One flunky caught her just before she hit, announcing proudly, "I got her, boss!" But his triumph was short-lived.

Chance nimbly kicked the flunky in the face, flipped backward, sprung five feet into the air and shoved her drumstick through his heart. The other vamps scattered as he burst into dust.

Her parents gaped, astonished.

"I always knew these felt right," Chance said, twirling the drumstick and then tucking it into her jeans. Ashes gently drifting down around her like black snow, she blew one out of her mouth and looked up. "Should maybe not use 'em so high up next time..."

"Dru?!" Angelus got wild-eyed. "Did that little cunt just dust Dru?"

"No fucking way," whispered Faith.

"Way," Chance said with airquotes, then narrowed her eyes at Angelus. "Did you just call me a--?" Stopping mid-sentence, she cocked her head. "Yeah, I hear you, Ian! ...Y-you want me to... what?"

Spike's pinky finger grazed Buffy's, and their hands entwined.

"I can't even hear what she can hear," muttered one of the vamps collaring Spike. "What the hell is she?"

Voice gruff with pride, Spike said, "She's ours."

Buffy smiled.

"Shhh!" Chance held up a quieting hand, closed her eyes, and pinpointed her hearing... to a heartbeat in the trees. She looked up at the source, took a running start and jumped, her thigh muscles propelling her to the top of a fifty foot palm tree.

Her path illuminated by Giles' flashlight, everyone saw it happen.

"She's evil!" Anya screeched from the kitchen.

"She's not evil," Giles replied in awestruck realization. "...She's part rabbit."

"Like I said, evil!"

"Hon, breathe," Xander calmed his wife. "And try to sit down. You're in labor."

"A slayer bunny," Angelus awed. "That's ...new. But jumping isn't flying. Yeah, you're still pretty much doomed."

Noting that the goons around them had dropped their guard, Buffy squeezed Spike's hand and said, "Oh my god, she's killing everything up there!"

After a confused second, Spike got the hint and helped her stake their captors.

"Hey!" Faith said as the lone quartet snapped into battle stance.

Buffy lunged at Faith, Spike threw a very satisfying left at Angelus, and the fight was on.

"Hey, backup dancers," Faith shouted into the dark, fielding Buffy's swings. "What good are you if you don't back us up?"

"They lost their mommy," Angelus said. "They don't know we can get her back."

"We can?"

"We can do anything with that little rodent's heart."

"You'll never get it," Spike sneered.

"No? Unlike you two, I can hear her. Right now, she's begging our strongest buck for mercy. Gasping for breath." Dodging a blow, he yelled out, "Save some for me, Riley boy!"

"Riley?" Mouth going dry, Buffy slowed and shouted, "Chance?! Ian?!"

No answer.

"He's bluffing," Spike said.

"Am I?" He elbowed Spike in the nose. "Why aren't they answering?"

"I can't see her," Giles said to Joyce. "Can you?"

"Your little mutant may have dethroned the queen, but the king... lives on." Angelus nailed Spike with a flying kick, throwing him onto his back. "Thankya very much."

"Wow. Your impressions?" Buffy said, and went for him. "Suck."

Faith intervened and punched her in the gut, making her stagger and double over. "Oh hey! Déjà vu, right?"

"Buffy!" Spike tried to get to her, but Angelus got in the way.

~

"Spike, catch!" Xander tossed him a newly whittled stake and turned to Willow and Tara. "He didn't catch it. Why aren't you helping them?"

"We're still fortifying the doors! We're a little rusty, okay?"

"They're losing out there. We should be fighting. Giles?"

"I think we're all a bit rusty, Xander..."

"That's it. I'm going."

"No!" Anya grabbed his arm. "If you go out there, I'm leaving you." She cramped up with a pre-contraction. "GodDAMMIT!"

"Do you want some cake, Momma? Our cake makes bad things go away."

"Mallie, your mom doesn't need any--"

Anya grabbed the plate before he gave it back, and she and Xander came to the same conclusion:

"...garlic-stuffed cake."

~

"Ah, William," Angelus said with a tinge of Irish accent, basking in victory as he stood over a prone and hurting Spike, boot on his neck. "You couldn't beat me when you were a vampire. What makes you think you could even touch me as a second-rate slayer?"

Spike glanced at Buffy. She was losing focus, worried about too many things at once. Much like him. His kids were missing, his wife and unborn child were in trouble, Angelus was crushing his windpipe... They needed a miracle.

Angelus pop-kicked Buffy's fallen drumstick into his own grasp before Spike could reach it. "Silly rabbit. Sticks are for--" Suddenly, something brown and gooey hit the back of his neck. "What the...? Ah!" He scratched at it, as if it itched, and another hit his cheek.

"Hey!" Faith, having the same problem, spun to face the kitchen door, crowded with Harrises, Rosenberg-MacClays and one large cakepan. "The hell did you just throw at me?"

"Aim be true," Tara said, and clocked her in the eye.

"Motherfucker!" Faith pawed at her eye. "Shit stings!"

A garlic clove landed on the deck beside Spike's head, and he laughed. "Bloody psychic twins! I always knew they were too weird not to be seers."

"Chance?" Buffy called again. "Ian?"

"We're okay!" Chance shouted from the trees. "Uh, for now!"

As Angelus and Faith floundered comically from the pitched lobs of vampire repellent, Buffy found both stakes, took Spike's hand, and gathered a fistful of garlic.

"Hey, Faith, you got a little something on your... No... Here, let me get it." Buffy slugged her in the nose.

"I'm gonna break your neck," Angelus snarled at Spike. "Then I'm gonna rape your wife and both your children and eat your unborn baby alive."

Buffy said, "Good to know it's still alive. Thanks for the update."

"This," Spike shut a garlic clove into Angelus' mouth, "is the last thing you'll ever taste."

Finding themselves back to back, Buffy said to her fellow slayer, "You know what I really want, baby, don't you?"

Spike inhaled. "I can almost smell it."

With a quick spin, they switched opponents.

"You'll never do it," Angelus laughed at her, "you still love--"

Angelus disintegrated into nothing.

"Holy shit, B. You grew some balls!"

And those were Faith's last words.

Spike wiped the dust from his wife's dress. "You okay?"

"Closure," Buffy said, breathless. "Kinda awesome. You?"

He kissed her, hard. Their foreheads met, he clutched her belly, and they smiled.

Together, they yelled out for their children.

"How are we gonna get them down?" Buffy wondered.

"Um, Ian seems to think I can do this!" Chance hollered. "So... hold tight. We're about to find out if he's a genius or he just wants me dead! Or, you know, both!"

After a moment of rustling, they heard, "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Screaming as she bounded down diagonally from the palm tree, Chance landed on her feet, Ian safe in her arms.

Eyes luminous, reflecting Giles' flashlight, she blinked and they returned to normal. "Okay. Yeah. We're okay."

"Whoa," whispered a smitten Jesse, watching from the doorway.

"Not bad, Brainiac," Chance commended as she put Ian down.

About to run to his mother's outstretched arms, Ian paused, turned and gave his big sister a hug. "Thanks, Chancey."

"Hey, nobody messes with you but me. Right?"

He smiled. "Right."

When he left her grasp, she breathed in deep and turned her attention to her shell-shocked parents.

"Mom? Dad?" She smiled sweetly. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"







THE END