Buffy sat atop the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom with her hands in her lap. She had been staring at the water slowly dripping from the faucet of bathtub that apparently wasn’t turned off all the way but it was long past when her eyes had gone out of focus. She could barely hear the water drops as they met the porcelain of the tub, the bird chirpings that could be heard from the small open bathroom window wasn’t even registering in Buffy’s head. Dawn’s loud banging as she attempted to make cookies for Janice’s birthday tomorrow in the kitchen didn’t even bring Buffy out of her stupor.
The slayer’s whole body shook and her breathing was labored, and her mind was going a mile a minute trying to comprehend the new information she had just been given.
There was a hallow clomping of footsteps up the stairs and soon the bathroom door was pushed open to reveal Dawn. The 16-year-old stopped as she realized Buffy was occupying the room, but she stared curiously at her sister and legal guardian when it sunk in that her sister was just sitting in the bathroom…practically catatonic.
“Buffy?”
Nothing.
Slowly Dawn walked into the bathroom from the doorway, wary about moving too quickly, not wanting to scare her sister. “Buffy…?” Dawn’s voice wavered on worried, as she got no response from the slayer.
She appeared fine, no bruises or cuts were apparent and it was middle of the afternoon, any that she had received from patrol the night before would have been well healed. She waved her hand in front of her sister’s face and got no other reaction, not even a movement of her eyes. When Dawn dropped her hand to her side she looked down to her sister’s lap where her hands were folded together, clutching a white stick. Going to grab it, Dawn plucked it slowly from her hands.
“OH! Ew!” Dawn exclaimed when it hit her that she was holding a pregnancy test, a used test in her hand. She switched to holding the stick between her thumb and index at the very edge of the clean side. Dawn was always a fan of the dramatics but it didn’t bring Buffy out of her stupor.
Why was Buffy taking a pregnancy test?
Turning it over Dawn looked at the little window that gave the results, her heart pounding as she did. She was happy to see her sister had gotten the easy to read test, because Dawn would have no clue how to tell between the whole line results.
Pregnant
There was no, not-pregnant, or negative. But there in defined letters of the little screen read Pregnant. Dawn’s eyes became wide and she almost dropped the test when she herself read the results.
“HOLY SHIT!”
Looking across the countertop of the bathroom sat 6 other different pregnancy tests, each one reading those confirming words. Wow, how was Buffy able to pee this much? Dawn thought as she lined up the 7th and most recent test next the others. She looked back at her sister who had now stopped staring at the bathtub but was now overlooking the tests laid out before them.
“Buffy? You’re pregnant?!?”
Buffy blinked, as if the words of being told, whether they were a question or not, were enough to ‘wake-up’. With each blink of her eyes tears formed at the brim and threatened to spill over until Buffy’s face crumpled up and she let out a heavy sob.
“But…how?!?! How could you do this to Spike?” Dawn asked staring horrified at her sister.
Dawn Summers had been so sure that her sister was in love and completely exclusive to Spike. They had been mated almost three years now, that type of bond was tighter than any regular human marriage. The idea of her sister cheating on Spike made Dawn want to hurl.
“I didn’t cheat on Spike!” Buffy shouted through her crying, her face buried in her hands.
“So the baby is Spike’s?” Dawn asked really confused.
“Vampires can’t produce children, you dope.” Even as they were getting older, and Buffy took on the role of Dawn’s guardian they would still always refer to the name calling that came with sisterhood.
“That’s what I thought! But if you’re pregnant, and Spike can’t have children it really begs the question of how you’re pregnant.”
Wiping at her eyes, Buffy stood up and tried smoothing her black skirt. “What do you think I’ve been trying to figure out?”
Buffy shook her head, her eyes again coming to land on the row of pregnancy tests before her. She had been feeling nauseous for a good week straight now, at least throwing up once a day, and always at different times. She hadn’t thought pregnancy because like Dawn she had known Spike would never be able to produce children with her. When she had made the decision to mate with him almost three years ago, she had accepted that she couldn’t be a mother. It was okay because her love for Spike was that strong she wouldn’t feel the emptiness. Besides as a slayer she would probably never have been able to live long enough to having a baby, it had just been the cards that fate had dealt her. Together her and Spike had sealed the deal, a good couple months after a big battle with Glory and things had settled down. They had already been dating for six months and Buffy had fallen in love with Spike as she and him grew closer from working together on nightly patrols leading up to the battle with the hell god. She had never expected to find the love of her life, the one to be stronger than her first love for Angel, to be in Spike. However when Buffy had realized it, she couldn’t deny it.
So when Buffy had gone to the drugstore for the third time to buy her third bottle of Pepto-Bismol the pharmacist that had helped her finally suggested that she probably wasn’t feeling the affects of possible food poisoning. Instead she had led Buffy to the contraception and pregnancy test aisle. Buffy had tried to deny that she was pregnant because there was no possible way. The woman had only rattled off textbook statistics that not all birth control methods were 100 percent affective and telling Buffy the signs of pregnancy which pretty much summed up everything Buffy had been experiencing for a good while.
She had bought multiple boxes of tests unsure of how many she needed to take, only knowing people had always suggested to take more than one because they were never all the same results. The Slayer needed to be sure she was pregnant before she conquered the idea of how was it possible.
As Buffy had sat in the bathroom for a good two hours slowly making her way through each test and the same result Buffy wished that her mother was still alive. She had no clue how to take care of a baby, which by the seven tests were now confirming that she was in fact pregnant and there were no way seven tests could be wrong. And that’s when it hit her. That she was really pregnant, and quite possibly with Spike’s baby. She was going to be a mother.
How could she be pregnant?
She was the slayer and Spike was a vampire. And unless both Spike and Angel were complete idiots, they weren’t supposed to be knocking humans up.
She needed to find out how she was pregnant. Spike was off in Los Angeles helping Angel with some big bad and probably at the same time annoying his grandsire to no end. From the last phone call the night before, Spike wouldn’t be home for another 3 days, which gave Buffy enough time to figure out how she was pregnant and possibly ask Willow if there was a way she could do a spell to ensure it was in fact Spike’s even though Buffy had never strayed or even thought about cheating on Spike.
She worried the second she told Spike she was pregnant he would think she had been unfaithful because like everyone else thought there was no way a vampire could have babies. Not only that but even though he knew Buffy loved him with all her heart, she knew deep down that he felt on some level she was too good for him and worried she’d one day ‘come to her senses’.
She grabbed the tests in her hand and latched onto Dawn’s wrist, pulling her out of the bathroom. “We have to round everyone up for research.”
Three Days Later
Buffy felt utterly exhausted as she walked into the darkened bedroom that her and Spike shared. They had moved on from her room she had occupied as a teenager and into her mother’s old room. They had slowly packed up her mother’s things when Spike had moved into the Summer’s house. It had been a slow and somewhat painful process but really it helped with the healing of Joyce’s passing for everyone. They hadn’t changed much, not wanting to take away the feeling of her mother, only decorating to fit both her and Spike’s taste. The curtains had been the first to be changed, exchanging them for heavy blackout drapes for Spike, and tonight she was far too tired to draw them closed.
She dropped to Spike’s side of the bed, drawing his pillow close to her and inhaling deeply. Smelling cigarettes and his musky scent eased the nauseous feeling that had begun to creep onto her an hour ago. For the past three nights the typical morning sickness set into a routine of happening mainly at night, which Xander had joked, could only confirm that she was having Spike’s baby.
After pulling Dawn out of the bathroom, she had called around to the Scooby’s for a research gathering at the Magic Box which when they all finally came to congregate later that afternoon Buffy had laid the tests out on the table for all to see and sat back to wait for their reaction. She couldn’t quite get the words out that were along the lines of ’I’m pregnant. Everyone had stared down at them with the same wide eyes Dawn had when she had read them.
Willow had been rendered speechless, Tara could only stare at them, Xander struggled with words, and Anya had of course been the one to lead it back to orgasms. All the while as expected Giles had started with one ’Good Lord’ and proceeded to almost break his glasses with his cleaning cloth.
They had begun looking into possible pregnancies between vampires in the past but of course had come up with absolute squat. Giles had suggested it was quite possibly a pregnancy brought on by a prophecy and many times they had come close to it but none of the descriptions came close to being Buffy or Spike. By the end of tonight’s research party Willow and Tara had suggested that it was quite possibly a prophecy by the Powers that Be but didn’t involve Spike. After that Xander had begun to call Buffy, Mary, until she finally palmed him in the back of the head.
To say that Buffy was tired of looking things up where they had no clue where to look was quite an understatement. She was not only worried about how she got pregnant but telling Spike. Did he even want children? She knew he hated that he couldn’t give her everything, that he kept her from some things in life because not only was he a vampire but also because she was tied to him forever, and a baby was one of them. But that never told Buffy whether he wanted to ever be a father.
Spike didn’t like to talk about his life before he had been turned and mostly chalked his reasons up to the fact that ‘William’ was a spineless ponce. Buffy only knew bits and pieces through their bond. At times she could feel what she recognized as William inside Spike, and as much as he would deny it, it would come out in full force. One of the times they’d lie in the bed she was laying in right now, side by side he’d speak off poetry till she fell asleep.
The Slayer saw Spike as a man, and would always do so. He had a dark side but there was still a man in him even without a soul and that was why she knew Spike was good man. Angelus could only love her with a soul, but Spike loved her without it. Because of that she hoped Spike would welcome the child she was now carrying.
”Buffy…”
Buffy shook her head, shrugging the hand that was on her shoulder. She refused to open her eyes.
“Buffy….”
Buffy grimaced, and she closed her eyes tighter. It was like her mother trying to wake her up all over again.
“Buffy dear, you have to wake up.”
The Slayer’s eyes snapped open and she stared straight into the warm eyes of her mother. She sat up and looked around her, still in the same room that she and Spike shared. She wore the same clothes she had worn today to the magic box and before she had dropped to the bed in sleep. It was still dark outside and she spied the clock only to confirm it was not long after when she had fallen asleep.
Okay…you’ve got my attention.
She looked back at her mother, seeing her sitting before her on the edge of the bed. “Mommy?”
“Hello sweetie.”
“Am I dreaming?”
Joyce contemplated slowly, before smiling. “In a way. I can’t cross over onto the same plane that you’re physically on.”
“Wait, so this is you…” She couldn’t bring the words to say it.
“Yes my dear, this is real but I’m still passed on.” Joyce’s hand came to caress Buffy’s cheek and all Buffy wanted to do was just curl up next to her mother and weep. For 3 years Buffy wanted to scream for her mother, at times she felt like she was drowning and she knew the only who she felt could pull her out would be her mother. And although she survived it all, it did nothing to dull the need for her mother. And now she sat next to her mother carrying her own child and more than anything she wanted Joyce to be here with her.
“Buffy dear, I know you’re expecting this, but we don’t have a lot of time. I was sent as a messenger.”
The slayer looked down at her stomach before she looked back at Joyce who only could nod her head. “What do I need to know?”
“This child is a gift.” Joyce placed her hand over Buffy’s and the slayer could feel her mother’s warmth on her skin. “The Powers that Be wanted to give both you and Spike. The good you have done and the good you both will do to keep the balance.”
Buffy choked on a sob. “So this is both Spike’s and mine baby.”
“Yes, I don’t know what they did, but a little change was done for Spike to be human at just the right time for a short period give you this gift from them himself.”
“What’s the catch though?” Would the baby be a hybrid? Would it be like Dawn was as a key to different dimensions?
“The baby will be human, but it will hold the strength you both share. Like your immortality the baby –“
“What do you mean my immortality?” Buffy sat up completely clutching Spike’s pillow as she stared at her mother in disbelief.
“With your mating to Spike it brought you to immortality status. You won’t age. You can still be killed, just not by natural means.” Joyce smiled at the happy tears that slowly edged from Buffy’s eyes. “And your child will eventually reach immortality status, probably around your age now.”
Buffy sat there silently for a minute or two trying to process all the little bits of information her mother had just given her. It was becoming almost impossible because she hadn’t even fully processed the fact that she was pregnant yet. Now she was going to live forever. She’d out live her friends, her sister, and her father figure. She’d see the world change dramatically over time and forever stay looking young and fresh. She worried each year that went by for the past three years how her and Spike would cope with the fact of her aging and eventually dying if she did live to be her old age. For a long time Buffy didn’t want to look at that, and it seemed now they never would have to.
“Buffy, listen, this is the most important fact. You’re child is going to be center of one of the most apocalyptic battles and will determine the fate in the balance of good and evil.”
“Oh joy. Can’t even be a normal girl, and I guess I can’t have a child who won’t be part of said abnormal life.” Buffy muttered. Her stomach grew uneasy at the very thought of the child of hers growing inside of her was going to be the fighting force of big bang status apocalypse.
“When?”
“They wouldn’t tell me.”
“And I’m sure if they wouldn’t tell you when, they certainly wouldn’t tell you who?” Joyce gave her daughter a look that screamed ‘duh’. “I wish you could stay, mommy. God how am I going to do this without you?”
Joyce gave her eldest daughter a sad smile and placed her hand over hers resting on her stomach. “Buffy Anne you’re a Summers woman. I know things have been hard for you and I’m sorry I left so suddenly but you’ve survived. You’re doing such a great job with Dawnie, and you’ve realized what a great man Spike will be for you. You’re not completely alone in this, you have the others, and you have Spike, who will stand by you and your child.”
“But how do we know Spike even wants a child?”
Looking over Buffy, Joyce slowly shook her head. “Trust me, I know. Now dear…wake up.”
“Wait, no Mom! You can’t go –“
“Time to wake up Buffy.”
Buffy’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the low dull roar she heard from the open coming down the window. The memory of the slayer dream she had just endured was fresh in her mind and she looked around to see her mother nowhere in sight. She held her tears at bay to not cry at another loss of her mother. Her mother was right, she could do this.
As the roar of an engine came closer Buffy realized it was almost three in the morning, the time Spike said he should be in.
Pulling herself out of bed, still clutching his pillow, Buffy crossed the bedroom and looked out the window and down into he drive way just as Spike was easing the motorcycle into the driveway next to his Desoto. His platinum hair shined under the light of the moon. Her breath hitched in her throat as his head swiveled to look straight up at her through the window. His lips formed a smirk and he gave her a wink before he pulled himself off the bike and sauntered up the walkway towards the front door.
By the time he entered through the front door she was coming to the bottom step of the staircase. He looked her over, chuckling as his eyes landed on he pillow she still clutched.
“Hello cutie.”
She sprinted off the last stair and flew into his waiting arms wasting no time to latch her hungry lips to his. He held her tight to him, lifting her off the ground. Both reveled in the connection between them. For a straight week they slept without the other near by, for a week they went without each other and now finally being together they realized the toll it had taken on them.
Gently putting her back down to her feet, Spike pulled from her to allow her some air. “Enjoying my pillow, pet?” He said nodding his head to the pillow cradled in her right arm as if it were Mr. Gordo.
“My Spike shaped pillow was gone for a week.” She looked at him, clearly showing that she did not approve that he was gone for so long.
“I know, princess. Blame bloody peaches. I don’t know how I put up with him when I was first turned for so long. Off his damn rocker that one is.” Buffy wanted to chuckle at the simple fact that she knew Spike and Angel and him would never get along, no matter how much both accepted their placement the other had in Buffy’s life. Angel would somehow always resent that Spike had been able to make it work with her, and Spike would always feel the shadow of Angel over him when there really was no need to. “Bit peckish. I woke up as soon as I rested up from the end of the fight and left so I got the hell out of Los Angeles as soon as possible. Didn’t have a mo’ to eat.”
He kissed the top of her head before heading off to the kitchen, leaving Buffy to take a deep breath before following him. She had to tell Spike now, and tell him everything.
“Spike…”
“One sec, baby just need some blood then we’ll head up stairs and I can make up that week to you.” He winked at her over the door of the open fridge.
“Spike I need to tell you something.”
Rustling was heard from inside the fridge as Spike looked over the contents. “See Dawn talked you into not cooking while I was gone.” He pulled out a carton of Chinese that they had ordered a couple nights ago.
Buffy grew frustrated and she wanted to throw something at her mate to make him focus for once and not go into his normal A.D.D. mode.
“SPIKE! Shut up!”
Stopping himself from what he was doing, he looked over at her with concern before closing the fridge, holding a bottle of blood. He twisted the cap off making no move to the microwave. Cold blood would do because he was that hungry.
“What is it pet?”
Now that she had his attention she had no clue where to begin. She took several deep breaths before finally she grounded herself. Buffy opened her mouth but all that came out was stuttering. She watched as Spike began to take big gulps from the bottle of blood, practically chugging it as if he were a frat boy chugging budlight.
“I’m pregnant,” Buffy finally blurted out. Her hand came to cover her mouth; Spike however mid drinking spewed the blood out of his mouth, blood splattering against the wall and curtains of the kitchen window. Buffy scrunched up her nose as she thought it looked like blood splatter of a crime scene. “Spike! That was last of the lace curtains. Dawn took out the previous pair when she tried her making stir fry and it got out of hand.”
“Bloody hell Buffy, what do you expect when you just blurt out to a bloke you’re knocked up.”
“Well imagine the girl whose telling her vampire husband that she’s pregnant with his child!” She put her hands on her hips and stared him down, watching as he let that last piece of info sink in.
“You’re really pregnant?”
Buffy almost growled in annoyance, “No I just say that because I think it’s funny!” She spun around on her heels and walked through the dinning room, but Spike was hot on her heels. This was not how she imagined it going.
“Wait a fucking minute Buffy. You don’t just tell me you’re pregnant and walk off.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop before she ascended the stairs. “Are you sure?”
“I took seven tests Spike, and they all came out positive.”
“Well I can’t get you pregnant, Slayer, it’s bleedin’ impossible! So tell me how the hell you got pregnant.”
Buffy’s expression set firmly before out of nowhere her fist shot out to deck him square in the nose. “You’re an ass Spike.” At that she stomped up the stairs leaving him to clutch his nose in pain before he followed behind her again.
“I’m sorry, pet. You know my mouth’s not connected to my brain but color me surprised when you just tell me not even two minutes ago that you possibly have a little niblet in there.”
“It’s not possible Spike, it is. I’m pregnant and it is your child!” She slammed through their bedroom throwing his pillow down on the bed and going around to sit on her side in a huff. “I guess I was right, you really don’t want to be a father.” And within seconds she was bursting into tears.
Spike felt like a right git and wanted to kick himself right then and there. “Oh pet that’s not true. God I’m such a fucking arse. I’m sorry baby.” He crawled over his side of the bed before he and pulled her into his arms trying to comfort the tears his big mouth had put her in. “Pet please, I want this baby. A big part, the part that’s not trying to figure out how I gave you a child is bloody jumping over the moon that I did.”
“It was the Powers that Be.” She muttered between sobs clutching at his t-shirt.
“Wouldn’t expect any less.”
Pulling herself up she wiped at her runny eyes and nose, something he found absolutely adorable. “This baby is a gift to us. I saw mom, she told me. They somehow worked it for you to be alive for a few seconds when it counted and wham bam we got a child.” And for the next ten minutes she retold Spike everything her mother had said, from the why, to her and the baby’s immortality, to what the child’s role was; and by the end of it, Spike and her sat on the edge of the bed quiet and much like how Buffy had been sitting after her round of pregnancy tests.
“Who would of thought, us…being able to have a baby?” Buffy observed, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. “For awhile I didn’t know how I felt about this. I was okay with not having a baby. And then I’m pregnant and all I can think about between how, is will I be a good mother, what if I screw it up, wishing my mother was here and wondering if you even wanted this baby.”
Spike looked over at her, hurt seeping into his eyes. “Pet, of course I want this baby. I can’t even explain how much I really want this baby. I know my first reaction wasn’t so great, but God, Buffy you’re carrying my child, next to you agreeing to be my mate this is the happiest moment of my whole existence.”
“But Spike, what if we can’t do this? The two us having a child. And a child not only that but someone that’s going to be a warrior just like us. God I’m so nervous about screwing it up.”
“You’re going to be a great mum. You’re practically a second mum to the niblet and you haven’t screwed her up yet.”
“Yet.”
“We’ll be doing it together. I mean honestly, a hundred plus year old vamp and a slayer can’t go wrong. Between the both of us, we could do this.”
“You really want to have this baby?”
He didn’t answer her right away, instead he came to kneel before her on the ground his hands coming to caress her stomach. He could feel it, the slow and faint heartbeat. He could feel it and created warmth in the palm of his hand and Spike wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. Gently he placed his ear to her stomach, relaxing as he listened to the steady beat of his baby’s heart. “More than anything pet.”
That night, into the early morning both Buffy and Spike dreamed of the possibilities. They dreamt of what the baby could be like, whose features it would take on, and the life that could possibly lay out before them. Through out the whole night, they slept close in each other’s arms, each hand resting against her stomach that carried the gift bestowed on them.