Thine Own Self

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Eight

Spike stared at Anni, his eyes glittering dangerously. “What do you mean, asking why?” he asked her. “I think we both sodding know why, chit.”

Anni stared at him, her face completely blank. She was wise enough not to say anything. She leaned toward Jordy, and he jumped. “What is he talking about?” she whispered to him.

Jordy stared at her. “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked her in a whisper. She shook her head. “Know what?” she asked him, shrugging.

Spike gripped her shoulders and turned her body toward him a bit roughly. “You’re playing games you can’t even begin to understand, little girl,” he said. She stared at him. What in the blazes was he talking about anyway?

“Spike,” she whispered, and the small and hurt tone in her voice made him look at her closely. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. The last thing I remember, I was making fun of you for sneezing.”

Spike tilted his head and stared at her, hard. “Is that right?” he asked her. Anni nodded, and Jordy took her hand in his.

Spike expelled a breath. “Well,” he said, “whatever happened to you, we’d better figure it out soon, because I can guarantee you, if you act like that around Wes, whether you realize you’re doing it or not, the results aren’t going to be pretty. He may be a nancy boy, but I think your rustic watcher-boy brother could make things rather uncomfortable for you, and I know that he would.” Anni looked down. There were some things that Wes took very seriously.

“Thanks, Spike,” Anni said.

“Don’t be thanking me,” Spike said. “I was an inch away from thrashing you until you couldn’t sit straight for a good week at least. If you’d been my little sister, I think I probably would have.”

Anni stared at her, her tummy rumbling. “Am I correct in assuming you’ve gotten over that particular caprice?” Spike felt the urge to smile at Anni’s word choice. For the most part, it had been easy for them all to forget that she was so bright.

“Caprice?” he asked, his eyebrow raised.

“Whim,” she replied. “Fancy.”

Jordy put his arm around Anni protectively. “I wouldn’t have let him hurt you,” he said with a teenage boy’s bravado.

Spike snorted. “Listen, pup, if I’d taken it in my mind to turn Anni over my knee, there’s nothing you could have done to stop me.”

A growl rose in Jordy’s throat.

“Where’s a rolled up newspaper when you need one?” Spike asked out loud. Anni stifled a giggle.

“Spike,” she said, “that’s not funny.”

Jordy put his arm around Anni in a very deliberate motion, his eyes still on Spike.

Spike groaned. Anni grinned, and for the moment, nothing else happened.

Lindsey stared at his wife in shocked silence. “You’re pregnant,” he said, eyeing her stomach.

Faith nodded, her hand resting on her stomach.

“You weren’t pregnant when you went outside,” Lindsey said slowly, looking at Dakota.

“Don’t look at me, gorgeous,” she replied. “It’s not like I impregnated her.”

Lindsey tried to keep the smile off of his face. Dakota sounded just like Faith.

Lindsey crossed the room toward his wife, and Kody grudgingly admitted that he had rather nicely developed arm muscles. Of everything she would say for Faith, the older girl had impeccable taste in men.

Lindsey rested his hand on Faith’s stomach. “Our baby,” he said, his voice soft with awe.

He kept repeating those words, pulling Faith into his tight embrace, and lifting her off the ground, spinning around in circles. His voice grew boyish and loud, and a giant grin settled on his face.

“I’m going to be a daddy,” he said.

Faith nuzzled his neck. “Yes,” she said. “You are.”

Suddenly, a worried expression came over Lindsey’s face. “When am I going to be a daddy?” he asked.

“At the rate she’s going,” Dakota drawled, “I’d say not to make any dinner plans, Skippy.”

Lindsey wondered briefly how he’d made the transition from ‘gorgeous’ to ‘Skippy.’ He turned his attention back to his wife. “Are you all right? You’re not feeling sick? Weak?”

“I’m never weak,” Faith said, “and I don’t think there’s any food left in me for me to be sick, quite honestly.” At Lindsey’s concerned expression, Faith executed a delicate shrug that Kody recognized as one of her own gestures. “Morning sickness, minus the morning, plus a vengeance,” Faith said dryly.

Lindsey rubbed her back slightly, and Faith realized that despite her condition, she wanted nothing more than an hour alone with her husband.

“Since I’m guessing a threesome is out,” Kody said politely, “would you like me to excuse the two of you?”

Faith turned to glare at the girl, but she couldn’t quite make an angry expression. “No,” she said wryly. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“As if you’re going to stop me, Miss Bun-in-the-Oven?” Kody said lazily.

“Do we really have to go there again, Muffin?” Faith asked.

Lindsey, who’d been watching the by-play, interested, almost choked. Muffin? Muffin?!

“Don’t call me that,” Dakota said.

“But we’re so cute when we’re pissed,” Faith said, laughter in her voice. Dakota rolled her eyes. Lindsey laughed.

“That,” she said, “you definitely are.”

“Any chance that you have a younger clone?” Dakota asked him.

Lindsey shook his head, but his hand went involuntarily to Faith’s stomach. “Not yet,” he replied, the goofy grin still on his face. On impulse, her brought his lips to Faith’s and kissed them softly, losing himself in her eyes.

“No wonder she’s pregnant already,” Dakota muttered. Lindsey grinned again. Dakota grinned back a bit. She almost liked Lindsey, and half of the time, it felt like she didn’t like anyone. He clearly didn’t take himself too seriously. If there was one thing Dakota Kincaide hated, it was a person without a sense of humor, who took themselves very seriously, and who spent a good deal of their time doing nothing more than brooding. That kind of person always felt like it was their obligation to tell her what to do. At least, as annoying as Faith was, she wasn’t all quiet and serious and broody.

“Go pack,” Faith told the younger girl.

“And you think I’ll do that because…?” Kody asked.

Faith, a huge grin coming over her face, looked at the girl. “Because I’m pregnant,” Faith said, feeling giddy with the words.

Even though it made no logical sense, Dakota shrugged. She looked at Faith’s stomach, which appeared even larger than it had before. “Whatever,” she said.

“Don’t get snarky, Muffin,” Faith called as Kody took the stairs two at a time.

“I’ll make you a deal,” the girl said, turning around. “If the two of you can keep your hands off of each other, I’ll stop being ‘snarky.’” The sarcasm in the girl’s voice was clear.

Lindsey took Faith gently in his hands, dipped her back, and kissed her long, at first for Kody’s benefit, and then because he couldn’t help himself. He lifted his lips off of Faith’s just the tiniest bit.

“Snark away,” Faith mumbled.

When they were alone in the room, Lindsey sank to his knees, putting his mouth on Faith’s stomach and kissing it gently. “Hello, baby,” he said.

“Hello, daddy,” Faith said, smiling.

“Daddy,” the sleeping child mumbled. “It’s not fair. The ice cream wants to race with the zebra, but everything’s purple again.”

Angel shifted Hopie in his arms and brushed a piece of hair out of her face as he carried her into the Hyperion. Cordelia saw them, and smiled softly. She walked over to Angel and kissed him on the lips, kissing the back of Hopie’s head a moment afterward.

“Momma,” the sleeping child said, and Angel handed the little girl to her mother. Hopie snuggled up against Cordy, and the woman grinned.

“I knew it was past her bedtime,” Cordy said in a whisper.

“I’m not sleepy,” the sleeping child mumbled. Angel smiled.

“Let’s take her upstairs,” he said to Cordy. He turned to the others before going up to Hopie’s room.

“Can you guys survive without me here to mediate?” he asked.

“Was that called mediating?” Maddy asked chipperly. “Looked a lot like being all tall-dark-and-stranger-y to me.”

Cordy sent Angel a joking look. “She’s got you pegged,” she said. Angel glared at her.

“Don’t brood in my general direction. I’m holding the baby,” Cordy said, playing her trump card. Angel couldn’t help it. He smiled.

“Don’t kiss anything while I’m gone,” Angel said, teasing Maddy the way she had been teasing him.

“Can’t make any promises,” Maddy called after him.

Nicolaa jumped when she felt a hand on her neck.

“Miss me?” Clay whispered in her ear.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Possibly,” she said. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“So what vampires have you been kissing, Colette?” Maddy asked, avoiding staring at the get-a-roominess that was her brother and Nicolaa.

Colette blushed.

“Kissing vampires?” Clay said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s never a good idea.”

“Well, it might hypothetically sometimes be a good idea,” Maddy said hastily. “At the time.”

Clay met Connor’s eyes, and he realized exactly what Maddy’s words implied.

“Bloody sodding hell, Maddy!” he yelled.

Maddy grinned impishly at him. “Language, Clayton,” she reminded him in the exact same tone he always took with her.

Clay took a deep breath, taking in the smell of Nicolaa’s hair as he did so, and he slowly counted silently to ten. His baby sister was enough to drive anyone crazy. She was in a class all her own.

Connor excused himself, glad that Maddy was now Clay’s problem and not his own, and with one final glare in her general direction, he went upstairs to whisper his goodnights to Hopie. From the first days after they had found her, when she’d cried to him during her nightmares, he’d made it a point to sit by her bed for at least a little while every night, though he tried to keep it a secret.

When he got to Hopie’s room, he saw Cordy and Angel sitting on the edge of Hopie’s bed, Cordy gently tucking the covers in around the little girl, and Angel leaning in to press a single kiss to the little girl’s forehead. The vampire put his arm around Cordelia, and for a moment, Connor hated to spoil the poignancy of the cozy little family scene.

Cordy saw him. “Hey Connor,” she said softly. Connor didn’t know why they were whispering. Hopie could sleep through an apocalypse. In fact, it was his guess that, within the next year, she probably would.

“Hey,” Connor muttered, sounding every bit as broody as his father.

“She’s sleeping,” Angel commented needlessly.

“Yeah,” Connor replied.

“Think she’ll grow up to be like Maddy?” Connor asked, after a moment.

“No,” Angel said quickly.

Cordy smiled. “You know,” she said, “I think I’d kind of like that.”

“But there are always two,” Hopie said. “You have to shaaaaaareeeeee.” The others fell silent as Hopie babbled on. “Daddy, it’s not nice to keep that coloring book all to yourself. Connor likes Blue’s Clues, too.”

“Do not,” Connor muttered.

“You have to share,” Hopie muttered again. “Like milk.”

“And there,:” Angel said, “you have it. You have to share, like milk.”

“Sometimes,” Cordy said, “I wonder if they brainwash these kids in kindergarten. ‘Must share and think boys have cooties.’”

Angel and Connor said nothing. They knew, after all, that boys indeed did have cooties. For a moment, they all sat there, around Hopie’s bed, the entire family.

When Anni, Jordy, and Spike got home, they were greeted by two surprises. The first was that Oz wasn’t there. The second was that he’d taken the vamp toddler and his mother home with him. Jordy wore his incredulous expression, which coincidentally enough, looked to the passing bystander, identical to both his “chilled-out” and “pensive” expressions.

“Don’t worry,” Buffy told Jordy. “Spike will take you home.”

Spike sent a tortured look toward the slayer. “Do you hate me?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she replied. “I just like to see you suffer.” Anni decided after a moment’s reflection that she didn’t want to spend any amount of time thinking about those words.

“Slayer,” Spike said, and then he stopped at the expression on Buffy’s face, and his own eyes softened. “All right then,” he said, all chipper like. “Give me his leash, and dog-boy and I will be on our way.”

If Jordy had been more into facial expressions, he would have rolled his eyes. Somehow, he didn’t need to. The feeling came across perfectly clearly, even though he didn’t so much as clinch his jaw.

As Spike was leaving, Wes came into the room. He looked at Anni, and satisfied that she was still fully clothes and wasn’t covered in blood, he ascertained that patrolling had gone smoothly and that he didn’t need to kill Jordy. Spike, seeing Wes, glanced at Anni, and he hoped, for her sake, that whatever was going on kept itself nice and hidden until they could figure out what it was.

Buffy turned to Anni. “The girls are upstairs,” she said. “I’m not sure exactly what, but I’m pretty sure Joss flounce-age is involved.”

Wes looked at her. “How can you tell?” he asked, truly curious.

Buffy shrugged. “Something about the way Chance was standing, I think,” she said. “She looked like she was thinking about something she shouldn’t have been.”

Spike raised one eyebrow at Buffy, and Buffy shifted slightly in her stance.

Again, Anni made a mental note to ignore what she could have easily inferred.

“We’re researching,” Wes said, referring to himself, Anya, Giles, and Willow.

Anni caught his drift. “I’ll help,” she said, “if you’ll tell me what I’m looking for.”

“We’re looking into the balance conundrum,” Wes said. Anni nodded, she was familiar with it.

“Based on the ancient Amobyian, Kintaran, and Tristun philosophies that the laws of the natural world, now commonly known as the principles of physics, manifest themselves as well in the magical world,” Anni said, her voice sounding almost robotic.

Wes tried not to cringe. For most of her life, Anni had known nothing except these prophesies, scrolls, and ancient texts. It was what she had been raised for.

“Very good,” he said. “We’re trying to see if any of the philosophies, when cross-referenced with a Greek decoding of Tanzanian prophesies, predict a child to be used as the instrument of such magical balance. Cale appears to be the universe’s way of compensating for Connor’s miraculous birth.”

Anni nodded, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Is Willow checking the online database?” she asked.

Wes nodded.

Together, the two of them walked back toward the kitchen where the others were researching.

Spike turned to Jordy, and without a word, the two of them walked out the door.

“I’ll be back, slayer,” Spike said. “Heel,” he said to Jordy. Jordy stared at him, expressionless. Spike stared back, and the two of them walked in complete silence.

Upstairs, the girls were whispering.

“So if Cale is going to meet Connor,” Chance said, “then, logically, he’d have to go to L.A.”

Dawn smiled at the thought of Connor and L.A., though the smile was not nearly as natural as it might once have been. Since the Potentials had moved in, the two of them had grown increasingly distant.

“Yeah,” Dawn said. “I guess we’d probably go too.”

Kendall looked at Dawn, wondering why she didn’t sound more excited. “I think going to L.A. could be fun,” Kendall said. She had a feeling that they could all get into a lot of trouble there. “What do you think, Joss?” the brunette Potential asked flippantly, swinging the door closed so that Joss was again visible to the occupants of the room.

Joss said nothing. Still duct taped to the door, she was fast asleep.

The image before them was ridiculous, and the three girls laughed silently. Kendall grinned. “Let’s take her down,” she said. “Even Joss doesn’t deserve to wake up duct taped to a door.”

Together, they made quick work of it. Amazingly enough, Joss stayed asleep the entire time, caught deep in a dream the others knew nothing about.

Joss beamed up at the older girls. They were all so neat, so strong, so wonderful.

“Joscelyn,” Travers said, his voice rather sharp to the eight year olds ears.

Joss turned to look at him, wide-eyed. The other girls said nothing. They knew better than to interfere with training.

“Yes, Mr. Travers?” Joss asked, desperate to please the man, to fit in with the older girls. It wasn’t her fault she was only eight and everyone else was fifteen. It wasn’t her fault she’d been identified as a Potential so early.

“Your technique is off,” Travers said, finding no joy in tormenting the child. She didn’t have enough spine to be much fun.

“Joscelyn,” one of the older girls said. “I’ll show you how.”

“Thanks,Caroline,” little Joss said shyly.

Then the scene shifted, and it was a different day.

The older girl, now eighteen, ducked down next to the now ten-year-old Joss. “Bye, Joscelyn,” she said simply.

Joss stared as the girl walked out the door. If only Caroline had been called, then she might have taken Joss out of this place. Instead, Caro was leaving, and the other girls would be leaving too, and Joss would be alone with Mr. Travers. Again.

“You know,” Dawn said in a whisper. “When she sleeps, Joss looks almost human.”

Joss, curled up on the floor, said not a word. Kendall, remaining silent, simply walked over to her bed and took off a pillow and a blanket. Silently, she put the blanket over Joss and stuck the pillow under her head.

Kody took the pink pillow that had somehow appeared on her bed in the past twenty-four hours, and she tested its weight a bit. She’d thrown some of her things into a bag, but the truth was that she was mostly planning on buying all new things when she got to L.A. She sighed.

She’d go to Los Angeles, but not because Faith told her to. Dakota was her own woman, and she’d do as she pleased.

No, she’d go to L.A. because she’d realized one thing watching Lindsey and Faith downstairs.

Her father had never shown her as much love as Lindsey had shown to Faith’s bulging stomach. In fact, Kody was willing to bet one of her many trust funds that her father hadn’t shown any excitement at all when he’d found out she was on the way.

Kody looked around the house. There was no reason not to go to L.A. After all, it was a party town, and she was feeling like a party kind of girl.

“You ready?” a voice asked from behind her. Dakota turned.

“Sure,” she told Faith. “Whatever, Happy.”

“You watch 7th Heaven?” Faith asked her.

Dakota raised one eyebrow. “You recognized the reference?” she asked.

“This doesn’t leave this room,” Faith said.

Dakota nodded. “Agreed,” she said.

Both women stared out the window and saw the blonde flavor of the month sun bathing again.

Kody tested the weight of the pillow, before calmly launching it out the window and knocking the woman again off the raft.

Faith laughed.

Kody leaned out the window. “I think you’re getting sunburnt,” she yelled.

The blonde was indeed an interesting shade of red.

The woman cursed. Faith leaned out the window as well. “Is that any kind of language to use around a child, Clifford?” she asked.

Kody refused to smile. She said nothing, but thought of L.A. and all of the damage she could do there.

Faith knew exactly what she was thinking, and as awful as it was, she couldn’t wait.

Lilah cursed, fluidly and heatedly, inside of her head. Mr. Kincaide stared at the woman, truly fascinated.

“I’m sorry, Miss Morgan,” he said smoothly. “I’m afraid Dakota has probably already left for her new school.”

Lilah sent him a chilling smile. “And what school is this?” she asked.

“The Angel Academy of L.A.,” the man replied smoothly, not quite sure what this woman wanted with his daughter. Then again, she was offering him quite the business offer. His corporation had been in need of a new law firm for some time, and it wasn’t often that someone offered to fix stock prices as part of the deal.

“And was the ambassador of this academy by any chance a woman who looked remarkably like Dakota?” Lilah asked, her voice bordering on dangerous.

The man nodded. “There was certainly a resemblance,” he said. “Now tell me more about this insider information you have.”

Lilah took a drink of her wine, clearly disgusted. “You have no idea who she is, do you?” she asked him.

“Should I?” Mr. Kincaide asked.

Lilah didn’t tell him that Faith was a slayer. That would mean nothing to this man who lived in his own world of money and women. She told him, very smoothly and casually, the other piece of information she had gathered.

“She’s your daughter,” Lilah said.

“Kody?” Mr. Kincaide questioned.

Lilah shook her head. “Faith,” she replied.

Lindsey waited downstairs for Faith and Dakota. He looked around. This was the kind of house he understood: built on money, by money, for money. This was the kind of house he swore that his child would never live in.

It occurred to him for the second time that day that Dakota’s father was no better than the father who had abandoned Faith before she was even born. No better at all.

 

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