Chapter Seven: Loss
Spike awoke in a jail cell, his head thumping and his mouth dry.
“Oh, fucking marvellous,” he groaned.
“Good morning,” said a copper, looking in through the door.
“What am I doing here?” Spike asked, and the compulsion to ask ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ was strong.
“Don’t remember, sir?”
“No, I bloody don’t. But I didn’t do it.”
“Actually, sir, all eyewitness accounts say you did. But the lady is not pressing charges, so-”
“Lady? What lady? Did I hurt someone?”
“Your stepsister, sir. You smashed a bottle on her head.”
Spike covered his eyes. Glory. Of course. “Fucking little cow deserved it,” he said. “She said... she said Buffy’d been sleeping around.”
“Buffy?” the policeman looked confused.
“My wife.”
“You married a woman called Buffy?”
Spike glared at him. “If someone accused your wife of having someone else’s baby, wouldn’t you smash something on her head?”
“The someone, or my wife?”
“The someone - look, just let me out of here, will you?”
The policeman stood back. “You’re free to go.”
Spike hauled himself to his feet. “What about her?”
“Who?”
“Glory, you twat. Where is she?”
“Still at the hospital, I believe.”
“Not gonna die, is she?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh. Well, never mind.”
“Oh, thank God,” Tara clutched the phone to her ear. “It’s ringing.”
“Probably gonna run out of battery next,” Willow said, her injured hand in her lap, her good hand stroking Buffy’s damp hair.
“Yes, I need an ambulance,” Tara said into the phone. Quickly. I think my friend might be dying. She went into labour last night, she was bleeding heavily and now she’s lost consciousness... Yes, she has a pulse, but it’s not very strong... She’s breathing... I don’t know, Will, can you hear the baby’s heartbeat?”
Willow pressed her ear to Buffy’s huge stomach. “I can’t hear anything.”
Tara’s face was wet with tears as she put the phone down. “They’ll be here soon. If there’s no heartbeat, I don’t think it’s good.”
“But Buffy will be okay?”
Tara nodded, although she really wasn’t sure. “She’s strong, and she’ll be...”
They sat in silence, holding each other, trying not to look at Buffy’s body.
“My lord,” Davis said as Spike strode into the lobby of his house, “we’ve been trying to contact you all night-”
“Did you try the local clink?”
“Eventually, sir, they said you were asleep.”
“Passed out through massive induction of alcohol,” Spike corrected dryly. “And now I feel like hell. Where’s Buffy? She still in bed?”
“Well, sir,” the butler was twisting his hands, “that’s what we needed to tell you.”
Buffy didn’t know where she was. Unconsciousness brought her breif releif from pain, but every now and then something vicious would tug her back up into semi-consciousness, where everything hurt and violent pain stabbed right through her body. Vaguely, she was aware of periodic voices, of blood, of frantic medical speak, of people touching her, machines, implements, needles, knives...
When she regained full consciousness it was, as before, because of the awful pain. Her hands travelled immediately down to her stomach and she gagged when she realised it was flat and soft. It burned with pain, but there was nothing there. No baby. The baby was gone.
The baby was dead.
Giles awoke to the ringing of a telephone. It was too damn early for a call - but then it might be something to do with Buffy, or Joyce...
He went downstairs and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Rupert. Do you know where she is?”
“Who? Spike, is that you?”
“Yeah. Do you know where Buffy is?”
“No, I thought - is she not at home?”
“No, she’s bloody well not at home.” Giles heard something smash in the background. “She sodding left last night and I can’t get an answer out of her bloody phone. The girls went too. I don’t know where she is, Giles.”
He sounded horribly, desperately worried. “Have you tried calling Willow or Tara?”
“Don’t have their sodding numbers, do I?”
“No, right. Well, I’ll call them. Perhaps she went into early labour - have you checked the hospital?”
“Oh, do you think? I hadn’t thought of that. No, Giles, she’s not at the sodding hospital.”
Giles wasn’t sure what to say. “I’ll - I’ll try the girls, and I’ll, er, get back to you...”
But before he could dial, the phone started ringing again. He picked it up, “Spike, I said-”
“Giles?”
He had to think for a moment before he realised it wasn’t Buffy. “Dawn?”
Her voice was very quiet. “Do you know where Buffy is?”
“No,” Giles sighed, “but I’m trying to find out. Have you spoken to Spike?”
“No, I called there but they said he was busy and Buffy wasn’t there... Giles, it’s Mom,” Dawn said, and Giles suddenly felt cold. “I think she’s dying.”
Buffy woke again and found that she was in a dark room, hooked up to hospital instruments. She looked around, just in case, but there was no crib by the bed.
Eyes burning with tears, she turned her head to the wall and cried herself back to sleep.
Light woke her, peeping in through her eyelids, and with it came the sound of distant voices. She tried to sit up and decided that one of the tubes sticking in her probably contained some kind of pain releif, because she wasn’t in such horrible pain any more. She wore a hospital gown and nothing else. She was alone in the room.
Buffy wiped her sore, tear-crusted eyes and tried to work out a plan of action. Right. She wasn’t going back to Spike - that was a given. The only reason they’d been together was the baby and now there was no baby, so it was stupid trying to go back. Best she ended it now, rather than trying to live with him and ending up hating him even more. Buffy didn’t think she could live with someone who’d cheated on her, even if he did promise to change. It would just never be the same.
She’d go back home. She could finish her course and work in the gallery, yes, that would be a good idea. Her mom was probably still not feeling too good, so until she was completely recovered Buffy knew she’d have to take charge. She started to feel a little stronger at the thought. She needed a purpose - these last months in England she’d just been bored and frustrated. She wasn’t cut out to be a wife or a mother...
She sniffed resolutely. There was no point crying for something she’d never had. It wasn’t as if she’d lost a born baby: she still didn’t even know what sex it had been. Maybe they could tell her. Maybe she could bury it, get some closure.
The door opened and it was a nurse, a cheerful Jamaican woman who seemed delighted to see Buffy awake and alert. She checked her pulse and temperature and a whole lot of other things, and asked Buffy if she’d like to see her friends.
“Friends?”
“The girls who brought you in.”
Willow and Tara. Buffy remembered - the awful endless night in Giles’s cottage. Who knew, maybe if they’d got out sooner then the baby could have been saved... maybe... Or maybe it was already dead and that was why it all hurt too much. Maybe it was Glory. Maybe it was Buffy. She didn’t know. It hurt to ask.
“Yes,” she said. “I would like to see them.”
Willow and Tara rushed in, and Buffy was horrified to see Willow’s hand heavily bandaged. “Did I do that?”
“You are kind of freakishly strong,” Willow said. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not my writing hand anyway.”
“How are you feeling?” Tara asked, and Buffy considered lying. But then she realised that she couldn’t lie to someone who’d been through what they’d been through together.
“Pretty crappy,” she said. “I mean, I think I’m on a lot of drugs ‘cos I know it hurt more earlier, but really I think I could do with another kind of drug. You think they have anything to stop me crying?”
“Do you want to see him?” Tara asked. “That might help.”
“No! No, I - I can’t. Not right now. I just can’t. I...”
“Oh, sweetie,” Willow stroked her hair, “I’m so sorry.”
“It will get better,” Tara offered. “My mother died when I was seventeen. It’s really awful, but eventually it does get better.”
“That whole time thing?” Buffy said, thinking that it was hardly the same. “Well, I reckon it’s been a good few hours, but I still don’t feel too much better.”
“You will,” Willow said, looking pretty sniffy herself. “And we’re right here for you,” she said, looking over at Tara, who nodded. “Anything you need. We thought maybe you might need a place to stay, so-”
“I think I’m going to go back home.”
“But - back to Spike’s? I thought you-”
“Nooo,” Buffy said, “not there. I really just don’t think I can, well, ever see him again. Has he called? Does - does he know?”
“I think he spoke to Giles,” Tara said.
“And he hasn’t tried to come here?”
“We weren’t sure if you’d want him to know where you are,” Willow said uncertainly.
“No. I don’t. I really don’t think I could face Spike right now. As soon as they let me out, I’m going back to Sunnydale. Starting over. New life for Buffy.”
“Well, that’s good,” Willow said. “You’re more upbeat.”
“If I stop I’ll burst into tears,” Buffy said. “I think I still have all the hormones and stuff.”
“They said you might get really bad moodswings,” Tara said, “while your hormones are sorting themselves out.”
“Yeah. Well. I think I know which direction most of them are going to swing in,” Buffy said, feeling her eyes start to sting again. “God,” she sniffed, “it’s just not fair.”
“I know, Buffy,” Willow said. “They say God just takes back the ones he loves.”
“What about the people down here who loved them? What do we get for it?”
“You get to remember them,” Tara said.
“Remember? I never even - I mean, all I have to remember is nine months of pain and discomfort and worry and a failed marriage.”
The girls looked confused, but Willow said, “Yes, but at the end of that at least you have a baby to show for it.”
“But I don’t,” Buffy sobbed. “I don’t even have that.”
“Erm,” Tara said.
“Didn’t they tell you?” Willow said.
“Tell me what?”
“Well, he’s a little shaky right now, but they’re pretty sure he’s going to be fine.”
“Who? Spike?”
“William.”
“He’s not Spike any more?”
Willow and Tara exchanged another look. “Was he going to be called Spike?”
“That is a little, well, odd, Buffy.”
“What?” Buffy stared. “Okay, I’m grieving and hormonal, what’s your excuse?”
“We’re not talking about Spike, your husband,” Tara said slowly, realising, “we’re talking about William. Your son.”
Buffy froze. The world stopped for a few seconds.
“My what?”
“Your son. You were pretty out of it, Buffy, but I remember you saying you wanted to call him William.”
“I did?” Was this so they could bury him with a name?
“Yes. They asked you what his name was and you-”
In a flash, Buffy remembered. “His name? They were asking for the name of the father,” she said, a half-remembered voice sliding through her brain. She’d barely been conscious, but it seemed very important to establish Spike as the father, not Riley like Glory kept saying.
“No, they were asking for the baby’s name.”
“I think it suits him,” Tara said.
Buffy tried to put all of this together, and came up with, “My son is called William?”
“Yes.” Willow beamed. “You want to see him? They had to put him in a special unit because he was kind of weak, but they said he’s doing really well. I’m sure they’d let you see him.”
“He’s not dead?” Buffy croaked.
“No, of course not! Why did you-”
Tara elbowed her girlfriend, and Willow shut up. “I’ll go get the nurse.”
The nurse said that of course Buffy could go and see the baby, so in a kind of daze Buffy was put in a wheelchair and pushed through antiseptic corridors to a ward decorated with garish cartoon animals. Small children limped about with broken limbs, babies cried, and Buffy clutched Willow’s hand as they went towards a door marked Neonatal. Behind it were half a dozen glassy cribs, incubators, each one containing a baby with lots of tubes attached. It was very warm.
The nurse wheeled Buffy in and took her to an incubator containing the tiniest baby Buffy had ever seen, small and pink and chubby, with wisps of dark hair and tiny, tiny little eyelashes.
“This is your son,” the nurse said, “William.”
Buffy stared, entranced. “But - but I thought he was - I woke up and - all last night, it-”
“It wasn’t last night,” the nurse gave a big smile, “it was the night before. You’ve been out all day. Your baby’s twenty-three and a half hours old.”
“Oh,” Buffy said, looking down at him, unable to think of anything else to say. “Oh.”
She was allowed to touch him and talk to him, and after a doctor came by to check on the baby, allowed to finally pick him up and hold him. Buffy cried for hours and hours, not sure whether it was hormones or genuine emotion and not caring, either. Baby William felt incredibly right in her arms, and Buffy knew she would never, ever get tired of loving him. Everything else in the world went away, and it was just her and William, and total, unconditional love.
Eventually she was told to go back to her room and rest, and she could go back to see him later. Babbling to Willow and Tara about the total fabulous of her baby, how he was the best baby, the cutest, the smartest - already, he was a genius, because he’d opened his eyes and looked right at her while she was talking to him - how much she totally, utterly, completely adored him, Buffy got happily back into bed and let the doctors inspect the damage William had done while he was trapped in her womb.
“Stupid damn placenta,” she said, when she was told that it had been blocking the baby’s exit. “It’s just dumb. Totally gets in the way of everything.”
They checked over her stitches - they’d had to perform an emergency C-section as soon as they got to her - and said she was healing well.
“Well, I’m a strong healthy gal,” Buffy said. “William’s strong too. He’ll be fine in no time. Probably we’ll wake up tomorrow and he’ll already be crawling around. We’ll have to catch him before I can take him home.”
The doctor smiled. “It might be a while before he can leave the hospital,” he said, “although with any luck he might be out of the incubator soon.”
Just as the doctor was about to leave, there was a knock on the door. “Visiting hours are nearly over,” the doctor said.
Buffy stretched to see past him and broke into a smile. “Let him in,” she begged, “please.”
Giles kissed her cheek and gave her a tired smile. “I came as soon as I could,” he said. “How’s William?”
“He’s perfect,” Buffy gushed. “Well, not perfect, he’s still really tiny and he needs to gain a load of weight before they’ll let him out, so I guess I have to get him some doughnuts and hamburgers to eat, huh?”
He smiled. “And how are you?”
“I’m not so bad,” Buffy said. “Better than I was when I woke up. Now I’ve seen him.” She didn’t want to tell him she’d thought the baby was dead. It seemed really foolish now.
“And,” he paused, “what about Joyce?”
“Oh, God,” Buffy clapped her hand to her mouth, “I haven’t even called yet! I’m pretty sure Dawn said she was in the hospital, but maybe I can get the number for her there - Giles, it’ll be a hospital-to-hospital call!”
“Buffy,” Giles interrupted, not seeming to find her joke funny, “ didn’t they tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Buffy was still smiling, composing in her head what she was going to tell Joyce.
“Your mother... died yesterday. There were complications in surgery. The tumour had spread more then they thought, it was impossible to totally remove. I don’t know yet completely what happened. Dawn was understandably distressed when she called me.”
Buffy found it hard to breathe. “Mommy,” she said.
Giles touched her hand and she threw her arms around him. That’s what Willow and Tara had been talking about. Mom, oh God, Mom...
When the circumstances were explained, the doctors agreed to discharge Buffy as soon as possible, and she left the hospital within a few days, got on a plane, and took as many sleeping tablets as she could without killing herself. Part of Buffy wanted to slide down into nothingness, to just tip the whole packet of tablets down her throat. But then she remembered William, safe in his incubator in the hospital, and knew she had to live for him. Besides, Giles was with her, and he was relentlessly upbeat.
Xander met her at the airport. He was quiet, not sure of what to say, his usual jokes completely useless in the face of such depression.
“How’s William?”
“He’s okay,” Buffy said. “I called when we got off the plane. He’s gaining weight. He should be allowed out soon.”
“Can’t wait to see him.”
“Me neither.”
Dawn was a dissolving mass of tears, desperately glad to hand over all responsibility to Buffy. The funeral had mostly been arranged with Xander and Anya’s help, so all Buffy really had to do was hold herself together long enough to get through it.
It took Spike a while to track down Joyce Summers’s funeral. No one in Buffy’s camp was speaking to him at all and he suspected it was just some ingrained public school courtesy that made Giles tell him in the first place.
His sister Harmony used to live just outside Sunnydale, but since she’d discovered her latest husband, a rich doctor, boning his secretary, she’d moved back to LA. So he had to drive around all the cemetaries and funeral parlours before he recognised Xander’s rather dull car outside one of them and made his way between the graves to the flock of mourners crowding round Joyce’s disappearing coffin. They dispelled as he got closer, no one giving him a second glance, and Spike thought for a second that there were definite advantages to wearing so much black.
Xander and Anya walked right by him, and Dawn, sobbing, clinging onto Giles, nearly broke his heart. But it was Buffy who caught his attention, standing there alone watching dirt being shovelled over her mother’s body in its shiny wooden box, not crying, her body still, her back straight.
“Buffy,” he said, and she flinched. Didn’t look at him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to pay my respects.”
“Can you afford that?”
He didn’t bite. “Are you alright?”
Buffy flicked her eyes scornfully at him. “Peachy.”
“I mean-”
“Can you go now, Spike?”
He stared. “What?”
“Go. Now. Please.”
Momentarily at a loss, he eventually managed to say, “The baby-”
“There is no baby.”
Silence.
“The baby died, Spike,” Buffy said harshly. “There’s nothing to keep you here.”
Shocked, he reached out to her. She must be in so much pain.
But Buffy pushed him away. “Could you just leave?” she said, emotion high in her voice, and Spike tried to think of something to say to her. But there was nothing - nothing she’d listen to, anyway.
He took one last look at her, and walked away.
Buffy waited until he was gone before she let herself cry.
Chapter Eight: Oh death, where is thy sting, oh grave, thy victory?
(AN: Just in case you’re wondering, the above lyric and the title for Ch. 3 are part of a slightly macabre WWI troop song which goes ‘The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me. The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me. Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling? Oh grave, thy victory? The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me.’ Cheerful, eh? I guess that’s what comes of living in several feet of mud for what you certainly know are going to be the last few months of your life)
“Hey there, Dawnster,” Xander greeted her as she carried the baby’s car seat down the drive. “Ready for school?”
“Like I’m ever ready.”
“Well, do you have your lunch and your pencils, and some little bits of paper to soak in ink and flick at the other kids?”
Dawn smiled. “Always.”
“Then you’re ready.”
She strapped William’s seat in the back, clicked the handle back in place, and got into the front seat. “Okay. Take me to torture-ville.”
“High school is not that bad, Dawnie.”
“If this is going to be one of those ‘Best years of your life’ speeches, forget it. Principal Wood does those every day and it makes me want to punch him. I’m like, woah, you mean it gets worse? Hand me that axe over there.”
Xander smiled. “I mean, you just have to remember all the stuff, like dating and stuff, that you can do.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Well, kinda not so much...” He caught her mischievous expression and rolled his eyes. “Okay, less of the teasing the man who’s driving you.”
“Okay. All right. I’m sorry, Jeeves.”
Xander made a face. “Jeeves was a butler. Brains was a chauffeur.”
“Why was he called Brains?”
“Because he was really dumb, Dawn, why do you think?”
She got out at the entrance of Sunnydale High and waved goodbye. “My friend Janice over there thinks you’re hot.”
“She does?” Xander preened a little.
“Sure. But then I told her you were married, and now she just thinks you’re old.”
“Thanks, Dawnie.”
He set off again, this time aiming for a building with lots of playsets outside, swings and slides and carefully padded soft flooring. He pulled up, took William from the back seat, and carried him into the nursery.
“Okay, you know, kid, when they told you to gain weight at birth, I don’t think they meant for you to carry on at the same rate,” he said, hefting the carseat up into both arms. “What do you weigh, now, about four hundred pounds?”
The woman at reception smiled. “William never stops growing. And he’s always hungry.”
“Kid after my own heart. Okay. As far as I know, Buffy’s coming to pick him up tonight but it might be late. She said she’ll give you a call if it’s gonna be after six.”
“That’s great. See you tomorrow, Xander.”
Xander waved goodbye to his godson and drove off to work. He didn’t mind taking Dawn and William to school at all - in fact, he quite liked it. He’d seen Anya gradually softening towards the idea of having children, since William had come into their lives six months ago, and to Xander it didn’t seem like a bad plan at all. William wasn’t so bad. Granted, he didn’t have to get woken in the night by him, or worry about his future, or buy him new clothes every five minutes, but he still kinda liked the idea of having his own children.
It was Buffy he was worried about. Since she’d inherited the lease on the gallery, she’d been working twelve hour days there. She couldn’t afford to employ any other staff than the one woman who came in for a few hours over lunch, and she knew next to nothing about art. The gallery was barely breaking even, but Buffy refused to give it up. Joyce had built it from scratch, and they all wanted to see it succeed. Xander just wasn’t sure if Buffy was doing the right thing by keeping hold of it herself.
Buffy stretched out over her desk and held her eyelids open with her fingers. William was teething and often woke her up for what seemed like an urgent reason, but was just a request for attention because his gums hurt. Still, at least he didn’t want feeding in the middle of the night any more. She’d had two whole weeks of uninterrupted sleep. For the first few months Buffy had been in a permanent state of exhaustion and Dawn and Xander had conspired to force her to stay at home and get some sleep while they looked after William.
Buffy had read somewhere that for each hour of sleep lost each night, an extra night was needed to make up. She figured she needed to sleep for about four years, solid, just to keep up.
She wasn’t even aware she’d fallen asleep until the phone shrilled, jerking her awake.
“Summers Gallery,” she yawned, “how can I help you?”
It was one of her regular artists who was due to have a showing next week. He was cancelling. He said his sister was sick, but Buffy could tell by his tone that nothing was wrong. He just didn’t want so exhibit in a gallery that was doing so badly.
She replaced the phone and considered crying, but she was too exhausted.
The day was long and she didn’t make any money. Eventually six o’clock came around, but there was still a stack of paperwork to be done. There was always paperwork to be done, and she never wanted to do it. She wandered around the high, well-lit space with its familiar - too familiar - collection of paintings and small sculptures, feeling her mother everywhere she went.
“God, Mom, why can’t I make this work? I tried being a student, and that didn’t work out. I tried being a viscountess and look at the mess I made of that. I’m not even sure what kind of job I’m doing of being a parent. You never said it was easy, but oh my God, does it have to be this hard?”
She didn’t see the old DeSoto parked across the street, a pale blonde head turned in her direction. She just closed up the gallery, and by the time she left, the DeSoto was long gone.
Last time Spike had had a quarrel with Buffy it had been Harmony and Darla who made him get back together with her. This time they didn’t hold back in telling him what an idiot he’d been.
“Hey, doesn’t Glory get any blame in this?”
“Next time I see Glory, I’m going to drop-kick her lopsided ass,” Darla said. “But you were damn stupid as well.”
“Yeah, Spikey,” Harmony said, “she needed you then and you should have stuck around.”
“She needed me? Didn’t I need her? She told me to leave.”
“Her mother had just died,” Darla rolled her eyes, “on top of which she was full of baby hormones.”
“What baby?” Spike said bitterly.
“Precisely,” Darla said.
“She was bound to be miserable,” Harmony said. “You should have stayed and been nice to her.”
“I am not sodding nice,” Spike stormed.
“We’d noticed.”
“I think you should apologise to her, Spikey.”
Darla nodded.
“Oh, sod off,” Spike snapped, and stomped out to his car. He sat there for a while, brooding, then he put the car in gear and squealed down the drive.
“Liquor store?” Darla suggested.
“Liquor store,” Harmony agreed.
Spike got to the liquor store, sat outside for a while and looked at the special offers in the window. He’d got to know them all pretty well. For the last six months he’d been almost perpetually drunk. On the rare occasions when he’d been sober the hangover had been so bad he’d immediately started drinking again. He consumed his own bodyweight in cigarettes every day. The mankiest bars in LA came to recognise him as a regular. When the bars shut, he went to the liquor store.
Only in the last week his sisters had been at him to clean himself up.
“Stop drinking,” Harmony said.
“Stop smoking,” Darla opened a window.
“Stop ordering me around.”
“You are going to kill yourself with all this,” Harmony told him.
“So?”
At that Darla got pissed off and slapped him. “Stop being so bloody miserable,” she said. “So your wife left you. Get a divorce.”
“I don’t want a sodding divorce.”
“Why?” Harmony said with rare perception, “because then you might have to actually get on with your life?”
So for a week he’d been sober, and it was hideous. This was the first time he’d been allowed out without a chaperone, and where had he come? The liquor store.
In Sunnydale.
He had no idea what made him come all the way out here. But here he was, sitting outside a liquor store that just happened to be opposite a certain gallery, chainsmoking, watching through the artfully distressed windows as Buffy wandered around inside, tantalisingly hidden from him.
Right. Spike made up his mind. Tonight he’d get a hotel room in Sunnydale and clean himself up properly. Then he’d go and see her. He had no idea what he was going to say, but he figured some flowers wouldn’t hurt.
Right. Plan.
He looked back at her, stretching up her arms, dropping her head back in a yawn, and set off. Operation Buffy was in motion.
As soon as Buffy put her head on the pillow the alarm rang, or that was what it felt like. She dragged herself out of bed and went into her mom’s old room to wake William up. She fed him, bathed him and put a clean diaper on him. Then she got in the shower, pulled on some random clothes and fastened her hair up while she went downstairs to get breakfast ready.
Dawn was already up, eating Cheez Doodles for breakfast. Buffy rolled her eyes. Sometimes Dawn was like an extra parent: mature, responsible, bright, sympathetic. And sometimes, Buffy thought, watching her sister crunch a Doodle like Bugs Bunny, it was like having two kids.
“So tonight,” Dawn said through a mouthful of food, “I’m going to Xander and Anya’s to watch movies. Anya has some of that Greek herbal face pack stuff and she says I can use it.”
“Cool,” Buffy said. “Will you need a ride home?”
“Well, it depends on how drunk we all get. I’m joking, Buffy, they don’t even drink while I’m there.”
“Glad to hear it,” Buffy said, thinking that right now a long cold drink would go down very nicely. “Okay, I’m supposed to be meeting with that girl who makes the rabbit sculptures-”
“The ones that scare Anya?”
“Yep. It might go on late. So can you...” She looked pleadingly at Dawn, while waving William’s hand appealingly.
Dawn stamped her foot. “I was supposed to be having a kid’s night,” she said.
“And I’m supposed to be making money. Dawn, you know I’d have him if it wasn’t for the client meeting. Please. She could make us a lot of money.”
As it happened, the bunny girl, as Buffy helplessly thought of her, brought in a new load of sculptures that were even more frightening than the last. They’d never sell. William burst into tears if he ever saw one.
The bunny girl stayed late, arguing with Buffy about why her work wasn’t selling, and threatening to go somewhere else, which Buffy thought might be the best idea to come out of their conversation. By the time she left it was dark, and Buffy still had paperwork to do.
She left the gallery, yawning and stumbling across the icy road to her car. It was midwinter, unusually cold, and some of the streets had patches of black ice on them.
Buffy didn’t see the slick patch in the middle of the road until she’d already skidded on it, going down with a horrendous crack of her ankle, head smacking into the ice. The world went dark and she lay still.
Spike came out of the grocery store already lighting up a cigarette - California state law be damned - just in time to see the Mack truck rounding the corner at a slightly fearsome speed. In the same instant he saw the crumpled body in the middle of the road and thought for a dreadful second that Buffy had thrown herself there on purpose.
And then he skidded on the ice as he ran to her, and realised she’d fallen. He grabbed her and yanked her out of the road just as the truck went steaming past, honking its horn loudly at the stupid couple playing silly buggers in the middle of the road.
“Buffy,” Spike shook her. “Buffy! Can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered, her lips moved.
“Buffy, can you move at all?” He grabbed at her feet, her slightly worn boots, pulled one of them off and she yelped in pain.
“Guess that means your back’s not broken,” he said peering at her lower leg in the darkness, “although it looks like your ankle is. I’m gonna take you to the hospital, alright?”
But Buffy had already passed out.
Spike carried her to his car and fastened her in, opened the window to clear out some of the smoke-clogged air, and set off for the hospital, glad he was driving an automatic because it made talking on his phone easier.
He wasn’t sure if he still had the right number - after all, they could have moved somewhere smaller. But Buffy’s voice rang out of the answerphone, and Spike closed his eyes for a second as he listened to the message. Relentlessly perky. Damn her.
“Hey, niblet,” he said. “Obviously you’re not home. Listen - it’s Spike, by the way - I just went to see your sister and she had an accident - nothing serious, love, she just slipped on the ice. But she’s going to need X-rays, I’m taking her to the hospital. The, er, Sunnydale General. It could be a late one, bit, so I just thought I’d let you know where she is.”
He paused, then added his mobile number. Then he chucked the phone in the doorwell and looked over at Buffy, who was unconscious still, head lolling, the streetlights flickering across her face. Dammit. He was hoping she might have got really horribly fat or ugly or broken out in disfiguring acne or got the pox or something while he’d been away. But no. She was still annoyingly beautiful, and he still really wanted her.
Damn her.
Dawn waved goodbye to Xander and let herself in. The house was dark and Buffy’s car was gone - this really was a late night for her. She put the baby to bed, got into her pyjamas and took her shirt downstairs to soak away the pizza stain it had gained tonight.
The answer machine was flashing.
“Hey, niblet...”
Dawn dropped her shirt.
She listened to the message again, her heart thumping. X-rays? Accident? Oh God, Buffy! Dawn couldn’t take losing anyone else.
Her hands shook as she picked up the phone and dialled the number Spike had left. Nothing. It didn’t even connect. He’d kidnapped her!
Quickly, she got the phone book and dialled the hospital, babbling at the receptionist to know if a Buffy Summers had been admitted. She had. With a broken ankle and concussion.
“Will she be okay?”
“They’re not serious injuries.”
Dawn forced herself to breathe. “Can you - can you maybe put a call out for her to call me?”
Five minutes later the phone rang, but when Dawn snatched it up and cried, “Buffy?” there was a pause.
“No, niblet, it’s me. Buffy’s still unconscious.”
It was so odd to hear his voice again.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure - I didn’t see it happen. Far as I can tell, she slipped on the ice outside the gallery, knocked herself out. She’s going to be fine, love, really absolutely fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, love.” His voice was warm, reassuring. Dawn had to remind herself that he’d broken Buffy’s heart and never even tried to see William. “How’ve you been, niblet?”
“I-” in the distance, Dawn thought she heard William crying, and she moved out of the kitchen to listen better. Yep. Definitely crying. “I’m okay,” she said coolly as she went up the stairs, “but is it me you should be asking about?”
“Well, I’m right here with Buffy and a team of medical experts,” Spike said, and then he stopped. “What’s that noise? Is that a baby? That’s not funny, Dawn.”
“No, it’s not,” Dawn agreed, realising William had a dirty diaper.
“Is it the TV? Switch it off.”
“Why? You hate babies that much?”
“No, I - look, love, it’s not exactly easy to have to listen to it when - is it getting louder?”
“Yes,” Dawn said, “it’s cold in here and he doesn’t like that.”
There was a pause.
“Who?” Spike said.
“William. Your son, Spike, or had you forgotten?”
Chapter Nine: Heat
For Buffy, it was wonderful. Hours and hours of uninterrupted, deeply soft, dreamless sleep. It was pure bliss. Buffy knew that if there was a heaven, it would be lined with eiderdowns and there would be no alarm clocks or crying babies.
Eventually she woke up, cocooned in softness and warmth, her head heavy, and she probably would have drifted off again if she hadn’t tried to move her leg and realised there was a heavy cast around her ankle.
She opened her eyes. Darkness. Warmth, and... Smoke?
Panicked, she sniffed again. Not fire smoke, cigarette smoke. And leather. And...
“Spike?”
The mattress shifted, and she realised he was sitting beside her, on top of the covers, fully clothed, chainsmoking.
“Morning, pet.”
“It’s still dark.”
“It’s still morning.”
“Where - what the hell is going on?”
He laughed softly. “Good question. Who’s William?”
Fear clutched at her. Please God, she was dreaming and this was just her worst nightmare, not reality.
“That’s your name.”
“And also the name of a baby living at your house who you’ve been going around telling people is my son. But it’s a funny thing, love,” he lit another cigarette from the one he was still smoking, “I could’ve sworn you said he was dead.”
Buffy closed her eyes, trying to breathe deeply but getting lungfuls of nicotine instead. “God, smoke much,” she coughed.
“My room,” Spike said petulantly.
“You sound like a teenager.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a smoking room in California?”
So they were still in California, then. That was something. “This is a hotel?”
“You can check out any time you like,” Spike quoted bitterly, “but you can never leave. Literally,” he nudged her leg with his boot, through the duvet. “More bed rest for you, Summers.”
“You want to tell me what happened? Or do I have to work it out?” Buffy pulled herself into a sitting position, wincing as she moved her ankle. Then she realised she was only wearing her underwear - tatty knickers and a nursing bra that had gone grey in the wash - and hurriedly pulled the duvet up under her arms.
Spike laughed. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Buffy thought about the nursing bra. “Sure about that?”
“What’s the scar on your stomach?”
“C-section.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Thought I was going to die.”
“Good. Why’d you tell me he was dead?”
Buffy closed her eyes. Good question. She didn’t really know.
“Because I wanted to hurt you,” she said, the best explanation she could think of.
“You nearly bloody killed me. You know this is the first time I’ve been sober in six months?”
“And there’s me wondering why I didn’t want you to be involved with my son.”
“My son,” Spike said fiercely.
“I thought you thought he was Riley’s.”
“Captain Cardboard? Does he even have a penis?”
“Yes, a reasonably large one,” Buffy said, wondering when the conversation had got so surreal.
“And the last time you slept with him was...?”
“Over two years ago.”
“So why would I think-”
“Glory seemed pretty adamant you did.”
“Glory,” Spike said, “is on the waiting list for the seventh circle of hell. After I beat the shit out of her I sent her back to her ‘daddy’ and put a surveillance team on her. If she does one more thing to piss me off, such as breathe a little bit more than I’d like, I am going to go back home and wrap her slimy irrigated yellow guts around her neck.”
Buffy was silent for a bit, digesting this. “Boy, I’m glad I didn’t just eat.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not for the rest of my life.”
Spike was silent a bit. “She told me about the camera,” he said.
“Did you beat it out of her?”
“Yeah,” Spike blew out a cloud of smoke contentedly.
“Can I go beat it out of her?”
He glanced at her, and he was smiling slightly.
“Why am I here?” Buffy asked.
“By the time they’d finished packaging you up at the hospital it was too late to take you home. Dawn needs her sleep.”
“God, but I need to call her-”
“I already did. How do you think I knew about Will?”
Buffy stilled, because that was a name only she and Dawn called the baby. “I need to see him-”
“He’ll be fine, love, your sister’s a grown-up.”
“He needs feeding.”
“She has plenty.”
“I’ll need to take him to the nursery-”
“It’s covered, pet. Your friend Xander’s going to do it. The little bit and I sorted it all out. Go back to sleep.”
“Go back to sleep? Spike, I don’t know what the word ‘responsibility’ means to you, but I can’t leave a sixteen-year-old in charge of a baby all night.”
“She’s seventeen.”
Shit. It was easy to forget. Dawn’s last birthday had been embarrassingly low-key. There weren’t exactly spare funds for birthday parties.
“I still can’t do it. What if-?”
“She’ll be bloody fine,” Spike snapped. “Do you think you’re the only person in the world with responsibilities?”
“Oh, yes, I know just how seriously you take your respons-”
“I still know about them,” Spike said. “There are other people in the world with other problems, Buffy. It’s not just you. I know you’ve had a hard time of it lately but-”
“You have no idea,” Buffy hissed.
“No? I’ve no idea what it’s like to lose a parent, have I? None whatsoever. Not when I’m old enough to know how to deal with it. And have a loving, supporting network of friends to help me through the tough times. You know, the day after my mother died I failed an exam and my dad confiscated my cricket bat as punishment?”
“My heart bleeds for you.”
“You don’t know what a hard time is, Buffy. I have bled for you. I gave up everything for you, and this baby, who you didn’t even let me know was alive.”
“What would you have done? Taken him away to be the next Viscount Spellingdon?”
“I don’t give a fuck about that,” Spike yelled, “and you sodding know it.”
“Oh, so I broke your heart? Well, I’m sorry, Spike, but I still remember seeing you and Glory-” she couldn’t stop seeing it “-canoodling like a bloody Benny Hill sketch-”
“She set that up-”
“And you were trying so hard to resist.”
“She spiked my drinks!”
“I can’t believe you were dumb enough to leave Glory alone with your drinks. Spike, why were you even there? Answer me that. Was the whole ‘Get off my property’ thing just a sham to put poor bloated Buffy off the scent?”
“If you think I’d ever touch that girl except to hurt her-”
“I saw you touching her!”
“I was really drunk!”
“And whose fault’s that? Spike, just admit it, you were-”
At that Spike snapped, grabbing Buffy and slamming her back against the headboard. “I was what?” he yelled. “You think I was shagging her? She’d just spent all evening telling me you’d been shagging Riley and getting me drunk enough to believe her. So I kissed her once - as soon as I realised what a disgusting bint she was I knew she wasn’t you and I stopped.”
“Spike, get off me.”
“I did not sleep with her.”
“Fine,” Buffy shoved at him, “just get off me!”
“Say it.”
“Say what? You’re a-” Buffy started, but got cut off by Spike’s mouth fastening to hers. She might have resisted, but it had been so damn long since anyone kissed her - since anyone even touched her more than in passing - and Spike’s taste of bourbon and cigarettes was intoxicating. She knew she should be disgusted on every count, but God, he kissed good.
“There’s been no one but you,” Spike said, holding her face in his hands. “Since I met you. Can’t even think of anyone else.”
“Then it was nice of you to pop by and share that sentiment with me,” Buffy said, succeeding in shoving him off her, but following him immediately, ignoring her heavy ankle as she swung over to straddle him. Yes, she knew she should be mad at him, but did he have to look so good and taste so good and feel so good? Her blood was up now. Buffy wanted action.
“You bloody lied to me,” he started unfastening her bra, and Buffy pulled on his t-shirt, pushing away his duster.
“You kissed someone else. You know you sent me into early labour?”
“How the hell was that my fault?”
“I was in shock.”
“You over-reacted. Would it have killed you to stick around and sodding talk to me?” He ran his hands over her bare breasts. They were fuller than before, heavier. Better.
“Well, you know maybe it would. Since the woman you were snogging did actually try to kill me once already-”
“She did not-”
“Are you defending her?”
Spike rolled Buffy onto her back again and kneeled up between her legs to take off his shirt and t-shirt. She ran her hands over his body, leaner than before, so touchable it was untrue, and pulled him back down to her. Her heart was pounding.
“Are you defending telling me my son was dead?”
“You-” God, he was kissing her neck, his mouth was hot, he felt so damn good, “-hurt me,” his fingers on her nipples, teasing and playing with them, “and you-” now he was licking her breasts, her stomach, “-bloody-” his fingers were pushing her knickers away, “-know it don’t stop-”
Spike ran his tongue along the scar at the base of her stomach, pulled her knickers away and delved his hand into the heat between her legs. Buffy moaned helplessly and pulled and pushed at his jeans, trying to get to the zip. But she couldn’t reach far enough, and eventually Spike rolled away from her, shoved the rest of his clothes to the floor, and came back all hot and naked and hard.
His hands were all over her, rolling her nipples between his fingers, pulling her uninjured leg around his waist and dipping his fingers into the hot well of wetness that bubbled against his stomach, playing with her, stroking her, making Buffy gasp and writhe as she reached for him and found him big and stiff and ready for her. God, all she wanted was to get him inside her, feel him moving against her, hard and slick and practiced and right.
“Spike, do you have a-”
He nodded and reached over for his duster, pulling a pack of condoms from the pocket. “Learned to be safe,” he said, and Buffy remembered why she hated him. He was talking like Will had been an accident, a mistake. Well, maybe he’d been unplanned but-
“Jesus Christ,” Buffy gasped as Spike drove into her, as big and hard as she remembered, maybe more so, pushing into her all the way, dropping his head and biting at her collarbone, making her cry out incoherently.
He started moving, and Buffy moved with him, their dance achingly familiar, hot, heaving, and for a small eternity the only sound was their bodies sliding together, their breathing, the rustle of the shoved-aside bedclothes.
Then Spike muttered, “Oh God, Buffy,” and she broke, lifted her hips higher, trying to take him deeper, and dug her fingernails into his back.
“Spike, harder, harder - oh God, deeper, oh - oh!”
He drove into her so fast Buffy could barely breathe, her body slick with sweat, sliding against him, and she clutched at him and screamed and moaned and then her body shook with mind-numbing pleasure and she shrieked out her orgasm.
Spike looked down at her, her body convulsing, her lips swollen and parted, and he bit her lower lip. She gave a little moan and lay still, tousled and abandoned, and his mind vanished into soul-sucking joy, and he came too, shoving himself hard into her one last time then falling hard against her, completely spent.
When he could move he rolled away and disposed of the condom - shows how much she trusts you, Spike - then came back to her. God, she was beautiful. He gathered her in close and kissed her mouth, but she barely responded. She was asleep.
Spike watched Buffy sleep, holding her close, and eventually his head grew heavy, his eyes grew dim, and he fell asleep with his body wrapped around hers.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Xander stared out through the rain at the expensive hotel.
“That’s what he said. I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.”
He frowned. “Well, okay... I’m gonna have to double park here, Dawn, I’ll circle the block and come back for you, okay? Just wait for me under the canopy,” he pointed to the entrance of the hotel.
“Okay.”
She clambered out of the car, grabbed William’s strolled and set it up deftly, through long practice. She clicked his car seat into place - she was so glad she’d persuaded Buffy to get one like this - and fastened the clear rain shield over the lot.
Then she crossed the road, getting thoroughly soaked as she did, and had to open the hotel door for herself, since the doorman barely looked at her.
Inside, everyone turned up their noses at the bedraggled teenager with the baby. Dawn ignored them and went to the front desk, where she had to wait before she got anyone’s attention.
The receptionist looked as if she never, ever got caught in the rain. She was totally immaculate and her eyes travelled over Dawn’s dishevelled appearance before asking doubtfully, “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Sp - uh, Wil - Lord Dashwood,” Dawn said eventually.
“Lord Dashwood?”
“Spellingdon. Viscount Spellingdon.” She scrunched up her face. “About 5’10”, bleach blond hair, lots of leather. Major hottie.”
“And you are?”
“Dawn Summers. His sister-in-law,” she said emphatically.
“Ah, Miss Summers,” the receptionist gave her a sudden smile. “Yes, he’s expecting you. You can go right on up.”
“I can?”
“Yes. Just ride the elevator to the top floor. It’s the only door up there.”
Rather doubtfully, Dawn pushed the stroller over to the elevator and waited with a very well-dressed couple, who gave her such snooty looks it took all her self control not to yell, “What, so you don’t ever get caught in the rain? And for your information, yes, I’m seventeen, but no, this is not my baby! His mommy is a grown-up and his daddy is a lord! So back off!”
But instead she ignored them and just enjoyed their confusion when she pressed the button for the top floor. Evidently it was the best place to have a room.
When she got out she was faced with a small lobby where there was, indeed, only one door. She squared her shoulders and knocked.
Spike answered quickly, looking as dishevelled as she did. He was wearing just his jeans and looked like he’d just got out of bed. His usual platinum curls had dark roots - it suited him better, Dawn thought, trying to keep her eyes off his naked torso.
“Hey, bit,” he said, giving her a smile, and Dawn blushed and smiled back. “Come in,” he stepped back, and she pushed the stroller into the most luxurious room she’d ever seen. There were sofas and tables and artistically placed lamps, and big windows offering a view over half of Sunnydale. In the corner was a spiral staircase leading to a landing with several doors leading off it.
“Is this a hotel room, or an apartment?” Dawn asked in awe.
“Bit of both.” Spike willed his eyes away from the contents of the stroller, still hidden behind the rain hood. “So... er, how’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know, exhausted and humiliated.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“People see a teenager with a baby and they assume...”
“Ah.”
“Which is a joke, ‘cos I haven’t even dated anyone since before Mom died.”
Spike did not take the opportunity to point out to her that it took longer to make a baby than that, but nodded instead. “Used to get the same kind of looks when I took Harm out,” he said. “You ever feel like just yelling at them, ‘Hey, the kid’s not mine!’?”
Dawn nodded enthusiastically as she took the rain hood off and folded it away. “Yes! God, all the time. I nearly did yell at this couple in the elevator-” she broke off as the phone in her pocket chirruped. “Oh. That’s Xander. I’m gonna be late for school.” She paused shyly and looked up at Spike. “Is Buffy okay? I mean, can I-”
Spike nodded and gestured to the stairs. “First door,” he said, “but don’t you dare wake her.”
Dawn went up and carefully opened the door. Inside was a huge bedroom with a gigantic bed in the centre. The covers were tousled enough for her to see that Buffy had a cast on her ankle, and was wearing nothing under the duvet.
She came back down, trying not to smile. “So let me guess, you two were with the talking all night?”
Spike smirked. “Thing with Buffy is you have to know the right language,” he said cryptically, and Dawn rolled her eyes.
“Be nice to her. And don’t wake Will, or he’ll never get back to sleep. I mean, ever.” She kissed her fingers and touched them to the baby’s head. “Bye,” she said, and was gone.
Spike closed the door behind her, carefully putting the Do Not Disturb sign up, and leaned against the smooth wood, his eyes closed. So far he’d not even dared to look at the baby yet. What if it really looked like Riley? Poncy bugger. Or what if it was just really ugly? Deformed or something?
What if he looked at the baby and just felt nothing?
The kid was still asleep, wearing a little yellow hat and a blue coat, with tiny little mittens and little trainers. He was pretty cute, Spike thought objectively. Such tiny little features. Delicate eyebrows and a mouth shaped like a perfect cupid’s bow.
Thoughtfully, he went over to a door on the far wall and pressed a button. A small elevator was revealed, used by the room service staff, and he gently, gingerly, pulled the stroller into it. It opened on the landing above, and he pushed the stroller into the main bedroom, positioning it to face the bed so if the baby woke up, he’d be able to see Buffy.
Or would that make no difference? Was he too young to recognise people? Spike didn’t even know what age they started talking. He had taken Harmony out once or twice when she was a toddler, but by then she was walking and talking, after a fashion. He’d steered well clear of all the baby stuff.
He sat down on the floor in front of the pram and propped his chin on his hands to look at the kid properly. No, so far he was still just a baby.
And then he opened his eyes.
Spike sucked in a breath, because William had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and they were fixed right on his daddy. Blue on blue, they stared it out, and William didn’t even seem to need to blink. Spike was breathless. This was his son.
Then William gave an unexpected little laugh and waved his arms, and one of his mittens fell off. Spike picked it up and replaced it over the tiny, tiny little fingers, tucked it firmly in place, and tentatively stroked the baby’s face.
He laughed again, and Spike broke into a smile.
“Hey, kid,” he said. “How’s my boy?”
William grinned.
“Yeah? Buffy treating you all right?”
“What did you expect?” came a voice behind him, and Spike turned around so fast he fell over. Buffy rolled on her side and laughed, watching him pick himself up, and William gurgled delightedly.
“Yeah, that’s right, your daddy’s a clown. How long have you been awake?” he added to Buffy.
“Long enough. Quite the bond you’ve got going there.”
“Yeah, well,” Spike looked back at the baby, “he’s...”
“Yes,” Buffy smiled softly, “he is.”
“So seriously, Summers, how do you get anything done all day? Don’t you just want to sit there and talk to him?”
“Well, he’s not much of a conversationalist.”
“He has really blue eyes.”
“Most babies do.”
“But his are gonna stay blue,” he said. “I bet all the girl babies fancy the nappy off him.”
Buffy laughed in delight. “You wanna hold him?” she asked generously.
Spike wavered. “I, uh, I don’t know how...”
She smiled. “Well you could start by taking his hat and gloves and shoes off. He doesn’t like to be too hot and it is warm in here.”
“I can turn down the heating-”
“No, no it’s fine.” Buffy didn’t add that as an economy measure she wasn’t using the heating system at home much, and she and Dawn tended to congregate around the kitchen table in the evenings, taking heat from the oven as it cooled. Dawn liked to joke they were like impoverished Victorians. Buffy wasn’t so sure that was funny.
Spike took off the baby’s shoes, mittens and hat, placing them very neatly on the floor, and then unfastened the straps holding him in the seat.
“Put one hand behind his back and the other-” Buffy began, then stopped when she saw that Spike had done it already and was holding his son with such an expression of pride that Buffy forgot how to breathe for a moment.
“My mum said when I was a baby I wouldn’t go to anyone else,” he said softly. “Only her. If my dad came near I just screamed at him.”
“Things haven’t changed much, then.”
“Guess not. But Will’s not like that.”
Buffy smiled. “We had this social worker who came by to check up in him and as soon as he saw her he started crying. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I think she thought I was abusing him or something because he just would not stop screaming. It was only when she left and he shut up that I realised it was just because he didn’t like her.”
Spike laughed. “Smart kid.”
“He knows who he likes.”
Spike looked at her. “So he likes me?”
“I guess he does.”
Right on cue, William started fussing, waving his arms and whimpering.
“Or maybe not...”
Buffy pulled herself to sit upright and held out her arms. “Hand him over,” she said with a roll of her eyes, but the baby didn’t quiet. He started pulling at the duvet over her breasts.
Buffy looked up. “Did Dawn say whether she’d fed him?”
Spike looked blank. “I, er-”
“Well, he knows when he’s hungry.” She pushed down the duvet and offered William her breast. He took it eagerly, sucking happily.
Spike stared. He wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was erotic or a turn-off.
No. It was beautiful. The whole thing was - the tiny baby, feeding so happily, so naturally, and Buffy, the look on her face as she held him. Never mind her dark roots and pasty skin, she was beautiful to him. She always would be.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, and she looked up.
“Not really. Feels a little odd, but you get used to it.”
“Is it-” Spike began, then stopped, embarrassed.
“Like when you do it? A world of no,” Buffy laughed. “I’m not Jocasta.”
Spike raised his eyebrows. “You read Oedipus?”
“Had to do something while you were out being lord of the manor.”
He dropped his eyes, scuffed his toe on the edge of the bed. “Yeah. Guess so.”
He was trying to think of a way to bring up last night without sounding like an idiot or a pervert, but Buffy interrupted his thoughts. “Can you hand me that bag?”
He looked where she was pointing and got a large canvas bag out from under the stroller. “I asked Dawn to bring you some clothes,” he said, not an entire wardrobe.”
“It’s all Will’s,” Buffy said. “What happened to my clothes?”
“Laundry,” Spike said. “Don’t look at me like that, I couldn’t let you sleep in them. They were wet and dirty from where you fell.”
“Sure,” Buffy said, but she didn’t seem angry. Nursing William seemed to turn her into a placid earth mother. With her free hand, she opened the bag and looked through it.
“That’s all for him?” Spike asked in amazement.
“Yep.”
“But he’s so small...”
She laughed. “He has an entire room at home.” She smiled as she found what she was looking for. “Can I use your bath?”
“You’re not supposed to get your cast wet-”
“For Will,” she said, shifting him to the other breast. “He’ll need a bath.”
“Oh. Right.” This was totally foreign to Spike. “Sure. Want me to run it?”
She shrugged. “A couple of inches, body-temperature.”
When he came back the baby had finished feeding, and Buffy was sitting there looking puzzled.
“You all right there, pet?”
“Do I have crutches, or do I have to hobble?”
“You’re not supposed to put any weight on it at all.” Spike held out his arms. “I’ll carry you.”
“No, you will not.”
“What, you’re going to fly?”
“I’ll hop.”
“You will not hop.”
“I can hop if I want.”
Spike considered the sight of her hopping across the room totally naked, and he smiled. “Sure, pet. You hop. I’ll watch.”
Buffy opened her mouth, realised what he was saying, and narrowed her eyes. Earth mother had left the building.
“Can I get some clothes?”
He grinned and handed her a bathrobe. “That do you?”
She wrinkled her nose and told him to turn away.
Spike rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen you naked before, pet. In fact, I saw you naked last night.” How tactful, he cursed himself.
“Yes. Well. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”
Her eyes were down, but he was looking straight at her.
“You want to tell me why?”
“No.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that: Tell me why.”
Buffy sighed. “I was angry, and confused, and-”
“Horny.”
“I - well, okay, yes. Hadn’t had sex in six months. Couldn’t really, even if I’d had the time or the inclination.”
“Me neither,” Spike said, and she cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Couldn’t?”
He made a face. “Too drunk.”
“How appealing. Look, Spike, I don’t know what you think is going to happen but-”
“But what, Buffy? I want to see my son. And you can’t stop me. And you know that.”
Buffy closed her eyes. Damn him, he was right.