DISCLAIMER: If they were mine, I wouldn't have to write this.
TIMELINE: Buffy 4th season. I think she turned 20 in the fourth season. I don't really feel like sitting down and doing the math. As for specific episodes, well, um... some relativity calm period in the whole Adam debacle.
SPOILERS: Everything up to mid season 4.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy gets some bad news. Riley takes it even worse.
DISTRIBUTION: Want. Take. Have. (Remember, even Faith would have sent a message saying where it would be posted.)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, so yeah. Buffy and Riley are "together" in this, and Buffy and Angel aren't. But I've been a BAshipper since there was a BAship, and it's pretty evident here, even if I don't mention Angel's name. THIS IS PURE ANGST!
FEEDBACK: Like sex, air, and chocolate, you know the rest.
RATING: Watched the show? You can handle this. Warning: Political type issue mentioned. Before you get all angry-like (if you're against it), stop, reread, think. It's just a fic, I'm not trying to make a big statement.

Buffy stared at the plastic wand, willing the indicator window to change. How could this have happened? Well, she knew the technical, tried to pretend she enjoyed it most of the time. But the metaphysical escaped her. She already took care of the world, pulled it from the brink of disaster more times than she could count, wasn't this a bit much?

She was pregnant with Riley's child. As she kept staring at the pregnancy test, thoughts swirled around her head as quickly as people rushed, last minute, to class. She was a Slayer, not a mother. She was barely twenty! Even if she had the normal life she had always wanted, she still wouldn't be able to deal with a baby. Even before the Slaying gig came up, she was never trusted with a pet, not even a goldfish. She was the Grim Reaper to even an electronic pet. And don't forget the Egg baby incident in high school.

How was Motherhood and Slayerhood supposed to work together? She could imagine Intitative night care, or worse, slaying with one of those papoose baby carriers and a diaper bag. How could this be part of her fate? Not only to be the Slayer, but the Slayer in college with a baby?

Little thoughts started nagging her brain, doubts about Riley. Sure, with his Iowaian breeding, he didn't seem the kind of guy to abandon her in this position. But, really, except for his desire for cheese, what he did and didn't like in bed, and his not-really-slayage weapons of choice, there was little she really knew about him. He could stand up to an attacking demon, but what if that demon was less material and more circumstantial?

Who was she to think she could bring something into this world? She was meant to rid the world of evil and that gig, but bring a life into it? Into a world where darkness is everywhere and there's nowhere that's really safe?

Beneath it all, yes, she felt betrayed. Someone must be laughing at her feelings, but yes, she felt betrayed by her own body. There was once a man where the thoughts of this exact thing happening was not as scary as this. There was once a man she trusted beyond everything else. There was once a man with whom this would not happen. It could be more her fault, and her feelings for this man that was once in her life, maybe because of the way she felt about the man that left her life, she slacked. Maybe wasn't as attentive of taking her birth control as she should have been. Because, she didn't LOVE Riley. She didn't feel for him the way she felt about.... so why should she be able to do the one thing with him that she knew He always had wanted. She didn't love Riley, this she was safe.

She was wrong.

Once again, she came back around. How could she bring a child into such a world? Into a world where someone could love someone soo completely, place her love and trust into him, and have everything that made her *her*, placed in keeping with him, handed back to her, crumpled and torn. No one should have to live in that world, and no one should be brought into it.

As more thoughts of the same vein tumbled around her head, her face set into even firmer decision. She dropped the pregnancy test into the trashcan, and set out with determination writ clearly on her face.

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Even as Buffy decided she couldn't raise a child, she was arguing that she could... or at least deserved to. This was part of a normal life. True, it was more the negative part of a normal life, but it was still normal, nice and nondemonic. It was a girl and a guy who couldn't behave and made a mistake. But a normal mistake. The world wasn't going to end because she was pregnant. With all the kings horses and all the government's super secret soldiers, couldn't the Slayer get away with having a baby? Couldn't the Slayer get away with having one normal thing in her life?

As she entered her room, and started dressing, she wondered if any other Slayer had to deal with this. There had to be Slayers whose knees weren't nailed shut. Unless the chapter on personality removal in the Slayer Handbook was followed by a chapter on the wonders of abstinence.

Out the door she went to the only place she could find answers.

Giles, oddly enough, was not there when she arrived at his apartment. Not that it really mattered, she thought as she let herself in. It was better that she didn't have to explain why she was going through the old Watchers' Journals.

After hours of searching, she ran across the journal of Michel de Shaunde from around the 1320s. His journal started when Eliane was only a Potential Slayer. They fell in love, married and had two children before she was Called, and he was carted off to England. Well, the Watchers Council hadn't changed much, recalling her own experiences with the Watchers Council and the two men that loved her. The Watchers Council should really get the idea that an unhappy Slayer is a careless Slayer... and a careless Slayer is a dead Slayer. She read the accounts of Eliane's last stand. The Watcher, Michel made it clear that no one survived the slaughter, and the information they had came from some kind of magic.

She rubbed her stomach. The Slayer had to kill her own child after it was turned. Her own child. This was beyond wanting or deserving a normal life. This was the truth of the life she lived. She thought of how often her family and friends had been used as bait. What made her think a baby, the child of a Slayer would be immune to that? The journal said the vampire child probably was much stronger than normal for having Slayer blood.

And, God, what if her baby was a girl? Would being born from a Slayer make it more likely she would be called? Buffy wanted a better life for her child than that.

Even if demons and other bad guys didn't kidnap her baby and turn it all evil, Buffy was more aware of her mortality than just about anyone. She'd been living on borrowed time since the Master rose. Dying young was one of the drawbacks to the job. What right did she have bringing a new life into this? What right did she have, she thought as she picked up a telephone book, when she had a choice?

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Buffy thought she knew what it felt like to feel absolutely horrible. During her stint as the Slayer, she'd gone through more torture and trauma that she could remember. But all that... her life until this point was nothing compared to what she felt now. She had done it. She had done what she needed to do for herself, for her friends and family, and for the child she and Riley had somehow created.

She had some money saved up, barely enough, but enough. Every step she took away from the abortion clinic filled her with more pain. She was nauseous, dizzy, and feverish. She had decided going in that it was going to be her secret. No one had to know. Somehow she'd build her savings back up, and if her mom asked about the money, she'd say she blew it on something stupid. That would be what her mom would want to hear anyways. Who needed the truth anymore?

She only had a little further to go until she could sit down and call someone to pick her up. She would tell them part of the truth. She suddenly felt sick and wanted to go back to her dorm room and sleep for a day or two. Just a bug, and not the lost of what would have been her first child, and if she was lucky, her last. A mixture of truth and lie helped everything go down easier.

Of course, the only person she could get a hold of to pick her up was Riley. He believed her half lies and drove her back to her dorm and helped her into bed. He was almost out the door when a half open drawer attracted his attention. She mentally cursed as she saw him pick up the box that contained the pregnancy test wands.

"Buffy?" He asked with a voice filled with wonder. Confusion, surprise and... and... joy were scrambled on his face. "Are you... I mean, I knew we were usually really careful, but are you... pregnant?" There, he finally said it.

She couldn't answer him, but looked down at the blanket on her bed.

He took it as a yes. "Oh, Buffy! I can't believe this!" He gushed. "This is... wonderful!"

Her eyes flew to his face. "Wonderful? You think this is wonderful?" She spit the words at him, but the emotion was lost in his happiness and he took the words at face value.

"Of course, how could you think otherwise? I know we're young, but a baby... Our baby."

He joined her on the bed and did the worst thing he could have done, placed his hand on her stomach. She couldn't swallow the gasp of pain in time.

His smile disappeared and his face fell in a wave of panic. "What's wrong? What's happening? That's not right."

Tears filled her eyes as she turned away from him and curled into a ball. "Of course it's right. I was pregnant, but I'm not anymore." She paused a moment in the heavy silence. "I got an abortion."

She pressed her face into the pillow as his words came rolling out. "How could you not tell me this sooner? How could you have not talked to me about this? How could you make a decision like that alone?"

"I had to, Riley. I had to. I'm the Slayer. Slayerhood and motherhood don't mix well."

"We could have made it work..."

She turned to look in his eyes. "How? How could it have worked? I would want my child to have a better life than the ghost of one I lived. I can't give a child that. It's better this way, it's safer... for everyone."

"But.."

"But what? I'm the Slayer, Riley, that doesn't stop. That's who I am. You can quit the Initiative. Work doesn't follow you home, use your friends and family to get to you. I don't have that luxury. I can't just stop being the Slayer for nine months. If I couldn't fight, I could die. If I fought, I could have hurt the baby."

"We could have protected..."

"The Initiative? Protect me? Don't make me remind you how often I've saved your asses. It's done, Riley. It's done, it's over, it's gone."

He started to say something, but thought better of it and got off the bed. Silently, he walked towards the door. Pausing with his hand on the door handle, he spoke without turning. "Would you have done the same if you had loved me?"

"Riley, I..." He didn't wait to hear what she would say, she guessed he probably didn't need to.

The door shut quietly, she was alone, and she cried.

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