TITLE: Benediction

AUTHOR: Lucy Van Pelt

PAIRING: Buffy and Spike

SUMMARY: Desperately in love, Buffy and Spike spend the holidays together, welcome a blessed event and contemplate normal domesticity, not realizing that underneath the white picket fence of their dream life, there are wounding spears. Part Four of the series that started with Protection.

SPOILERS: None.

DISCLAIMER: Joss can own the world, but Spike and Buffy belong to each other

DEDICATION: For Faith, Froggie, Kaitie, and Amita who, very gently, found ways to kick me in the butt and get me to the computer to write this fic. HUGE huggles for my Fly Girls!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth and final installment of my series. Thank you all for the kind reviews. Maybe now I can start that Pokemon fic I’ve been contemplating.

CHAPTER ONE

The bed is quaking beneath her.

This is Buffy’s first thought as she is instantly zapped awake in the early morning hours of a Sunday, late in December. The figure beside her shakes and trembles violently in his sleep. His limbs stretch out as his hands grasp at nothing, as though he is trying to strangle the air. Though it is always a shock to wake up and find him in this state, she is getting used to it; this is the sixth five a.m. she has greeted with Spike wracked by night terrors.

“Sh…Sweetheart, it’s OK,” Buffy says softly. She is very cautious in how she wakes him. She remembers an old urban legend about waking people from nightmares. If it’s done too quickly, the dreamer might die. But what if the dreamer is already dead? She shakes him gently by the shoulders. “Spike! Come on, honey. It’s all right. You’re just having a bad dream. That’s all. Wake up, honey.”

He springs to a seated position in a gasp, his eyes widening in confusion, looking into the darkness. His chest expands with breath he’s not supposed to have and Buffy swears there are beads of sweat under her fingers.

“You OK, baby?” she asks, trying to guide him back down beside her.

“Yeah. Just give us a second,” he says, tenting his hands over his nose and mouth while he rides out the remainder of the terror. He catches a glimpse of the clock. “Five o’clock,” he notes, his words filtered through the spaces between his fingers.

“Yeah, like clockwork,” she says, settling her chin down on his shoulder.

He finally settles back into her embrace, still flinching from the affects of the dream. Buffy strokes a calming hand down the length of his muscular arm. He can’t quite return a similar touch. He is content to lie in her arms with her kisses on his still furrowed brow.

“Can you talk about it this time?” she asks, though she knows what the answer will be.

He stiffens. “I’m not ready to share just yet.”

“If you tell me, then maybe you’ll stop having them.”

“Lovely thought, but no.”

He swings his form around until his back is arched against her bowed body. Her fingers make deep trenches through his stiff hair. He holds his pillow, but he does not hold her. Her arms are around him; that is touch enough.

“Can you at least tell me something?” Buffy asks as her lover seems to be quieting down at last.

She feels rigidity in his muscles as he braces against her inquiry. “’Bout what? The weather? My opinion of George Bush? The incessant Gap ads on TV, yes. My dream, no.”

“I just want to know…is it about me?” she whispers, her fingers playing around the shell of his ear.

She knows about vampires and their hearing, how it’s magnified ten times, maybe more, by that of human hearing. She wonders sometimes if he hears dog whistles, distant distress signals, her own heartbeat from miles away. She doesn’t need vampiric hearing or any kind of telepathy to know the answer to her question. The reply comes in the form of tears, always. There is no audible sobbing. She can feel the moisture splat onto her knuckles as she holds him.

If only she did know, he thinks to himself. If only she knew how night after night he lies in secret torment as the same horrific scene plays out in his subconscious. He stands at a precipice, with heat and flames surging all around him. He sees the tear-streaked face of his beloved, pleading with him, begging him for…something. He can hear her speaking, but something is lost in the translation. Her words just add to the noise and there is a great deal of sound all around. The earth is trembling and roaring so that it is hard to keep his footing. Together, they are maintaining their balance by holding onto each other in not so much an embrace, but a desperate clutch. This is a farewell. He bends his face close to her neck and he bites down. She does not resist. She wants this. She holds his head to her and he can feel her tensing against the injury and instinctively trying to fight for her life, but she does not struggle long. Eventually she goes limp in his arms, all of her blood now flowing through him

And he isn’t sorry.

Until he wakes up and he feels her arms around him and he hears her voice. She calls him darling and sweetheart. She strokes his hair. She calms his fears. She’s a lullaby in and of herself. But still…the dream…

“Just go back to sleep, sweetheart,” she urges through tired lips.

The morning hides itself behind the guise of night at this hour. But things change quickly behind the scenes. The stage manager that is the dawn obscures the view of the stars in a violet rendering, the sun burgeoning against the arrangement of blinking sword carriers not ready to be issued off stage when the main attraction appears. The sun that rises, the sun that peeks with its “is it ok to come out yet?” teasing over the horizon. The sun he wishes would burn him whenever he has that dream.

He finds resistance against threats to his immortality in her embrace. And she seeks out eternity in his love for her, and just how far it will go, every time she lies beside him.

The mood at the Bronze is decidedly festive this night, its temper dictated by the presence of glowing white tree lights draping from the bar and plastic Santas and snowmen positioned strategically throughout the hulk of the space. It’s Christmastime again in Sunnydale, though it may as well be the Fourth of July. The thermometer seems loath to edge below the upper 70’s. The female patrons who swirl on the dance floor wear the brief tee shirts and halter tops of the summer over their tight denim blue jeans. The men jump around in their light cotton trousers and short sleeve shirts. All are sweaty in their continued grinding on the dance floor. Two by two, leave the crowded space to adjourn to their tables for refreshment. Water is the most frequently requested libation of the night, that and a relatively new concoction enjoying immense popularity with the young set; Red Bull and vodka. Buffy Summers has served this peculiar beverage quite frequently and knows what affect it produces: very annoying, alert drunks. She has overheard two guys approximately her age ramble on for about fifteen minutes about how they might build a replica of the Great Wall of China using matchbooks from the bar. When Buffy passed by their table last, they had begun their task, but were distracted by two women across the room who were imbibing the same drink. Presently all four of them are entwining their perspiring bodies in front of the band’s massive speakers.

Buffy stands by the bar, her fist curled under her chin, staring wistfully at the dancers. She was supposed to have this night off and she had so many things planned. But as always, work got in the way and she needed the overtime. It is going to be a very Spartan Christmas this year. The rent went up by $50 as of December 1, something she hadn’t planned for, and Dawn has been asking for a laptop computer, something she can’t begin to pay for. She is so desperate to make this a memorable Christmas for her sister that Spike’s offers to “nick one at Best Buy” are becoming more and more tempting. “Good thing Little Bit just wants a laptop. They’re a lot easier to slip under the old duster than a regular desktop,” he told her just last night.

As she’s standing there with her back turned to the rear entrance, she feels her bottom being grabbed roughly and spins around with a jab at the ready for the offender. The would-be molester ducks before her fist can connect with his face. It is a face she is quite familiar with, the first one she sees in the morning and the last one she sees at night. It’s funny how he always seems to know when she’s thinking about him and when she wants him around.

“Now, I ask you,” Spike says in mock disgust, “is that anyway to treat the man you love?”

“Sorry, honey,” she replies. “But that is my standard treatment for unknown ass grabbers.” She steps forward and replaces a curlicue of hair that has fallen onto his forehead. “What are you doing here?”

He thinks the hair-tucking gesture is a silent entreaty for him to move a little closer and he encircles her waist with one arm. “Oh, I had some time to kill and nothing else to, so I thought I would see how my best girl was doing. And I needed to bring you this,” he says, showing the small, silver purse in his hand.

She rolls her eyes. “My tip purse! Did I forget that thing again?”

“Obviously,” he returns.

She takes the purse and snaps it to her belt. “Honestly, what would I do without you?”

Spike thinks a minute about this. “Probably masturbate a lot.”

She slaps his arm playfully. “You’re so rude!”

He grins naughtily and inches closer to her. “Yeah. You should slap me.”

“I should. Every chance I get,” she says, moving into his arms.

“Then why don’t you do it, love?” he asks close to her face, letting the scent of his freshly sipped beer perfume the air between them.

“Because right now I want to kiss you,” she smiles.

“What makes you think I want to kiss you?” he asks, returning the smile.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“How’s that?” he asks, cocking his head.

“You’re standing under the mistletoe.”

Both look up. Tucked in the rafters, seemingly miles from there they are standing, is a sprig of green, really parsley, but from that great a distance, a perfectly believable stand-in for mistletoe.

His lips fuse with hers and she grasps the back of his head where his hair is fine and short like a soft bristled brush under her touch. His hands move across her back and for a moment she forgets where she is and begs him in her mind to pull up her shirt so that he can touch her. She knows this is what he wants as well, but he is showing tremendous, admirable restraint. As their bodies come together, she can feel him growing inside of his jeans.

Finally Spike breaks the kiss. He smiles as he finds her eyes darkening deeper and deeper with arousal and teases her by grinding against her, almost imperceptibly to the casual onlooker. “You know, you’re standing in about the same spot as you were the first time I saw you.”

“Really? You remember where I was standing?” she asks, still wanting his mouth.

“Well, the place has changed a bit since Anya’s ex decided to give it a facelift, but, yeah. I think you were standing right about here. You were dancing, actually. You and Red. I thought to myself, ‘That’s her. That’s the little minx I’ve come to kill.’”

“I’ll bet that’s a How We Met story Ann Landers has never heard.”

“Maybe we should write to her, then. It certainly puts all those soddin’ World War II British-nurse-meets-nancy-boy-Yank stories to shame.”

She looks at him thoughtfully before pulling him closer. “Because no one would ever believe it.”

He chuckles throatily. “I think the roster of true believers begins and ends with you and me, pet.”

As he gives into her embrace, she begins to sense that he is leaning on her more for support than out of affection. His chin droops lazily on her shoulder and she clasps her hands around the back of his head.

“Did you get some rest this afternoon after I left?” Buffy asks.

“Not a whole lot. The Nibblet invited over her coterie of chatty mates this afternoon.”

“I told her to keep the noise down in the afternoons since you weren’t sleeping through the night.”

“No matter. I didn’t catch up on my sleep, but I am now abreast of all the latest gossip at Sunnydale High.” He draws a mock breath. “Did you know that Eric Daniels has dumped Jill Carlesco for new girl Natalie Simpson? And that Jill has started dating Michael Heslep, a boy she never would have talked to a year ago, but now finds fascinating because she’s so hopelessly on the rebound?”

“You’re kidding, of course? See? The things you miss when you let your subscription to the school paper expire.”

“Don’t worry. Your sister supplies me with the live feed every day. I’ll keep you posted on any breaking news. Such as, on the homefront, Nibblet’s going out with Travis tonight.”

Buffy bristles a bit. “On a school night? I don’t think so.”

“Relax, Buffy. It’s just a library date. I just dropped her off there. I told her I’d be back for her in about two hours.”

“She’s spending almost as much time in the library as I did when I was fifteen,” Buffy says in dismay as she runs her thumbs along the stitching on Spike’s lapels.

“Yeah. Loser!” Spike chides playfully, grabbing her nose between his middle and index fingers.

“Hey! She’s just being Madame Social Butterfly. I was trying to save the world then.”

“Oh. A Super Loser,” he teases, extending the pointed tip of his tongue through gnashed teeth.

“You’re really rackin’ up the rotten points tonight, Spike,” she says, teasing the tip of his nose with hers. “Big Bad factor in effect.”

“Always.”

They kiss again, their bodies moving roughly against each other, their mouths open and slanting over and over again. Buffy thinks that if they are careful, his duster may be enough of a shield for him to slip inside of her and if she sits just so on the stool beside her, no one will notice...She has to call a halt to this right away or she will lose all semblance of rationale and they will be making love in a public place, her workplace, and she will be fired. After all this time, he is still finding ways to kill her.

“Honey, honey…stop…stop!” she pleads with him breathlessly.

“Can’t,” he says, dragging his lips across hers, “We’re still under the mistletoe.”

Halfway across the room, a silent quartet sits at a table, watching the spectacle at the bar with open-mouthed stares. They just took their seats minutes before and it didn’t take them long to zero in on their friend and fearless leader being heavily snogged by the demon they are still reluctant to identify as the Slayer’s lover. For them, tonight’s voyeurism is tempered by a heavy eww factor that some are better at suppressing than others. The most vocal critic is the first to speak.

“You know,” Xander says, “I can get used to just about anything. New marshmallows in Lucky Charms. A new President Bush in the White House. Heck, I even got used to the taste of New Coke. But that…that…” His shoulders convulse in a mock dry-heave. “That’s just insanely gross.”

“They’re still at the bunny stage,” Willow remarks.

“Hey!” Anya interjects. “Like what we’re seeing couldn’t get any scarier!”

“What I meant was,” Willow is quick to explain, “is that they’re still at that if-we’re-in-the-same-room-together,-we-have-to-be-making-out stage.”

“Well, I hope they get out of it soon,” Xander glowers as he crosses his arms across his chest. “Because I’m about to lose not only the lunch I had today, but the one from yesterday and the day before yesterday.”

“They’re really into each other. No doubt about that,” Willow says.

“And, I think, really in love,” Tara declares.

“Yeah, that too. I didn’t really believe it until they were over at our apartment the other night-

“Wait, wait, wait…” Xander says, holding up his hand. “You guys invited them over to your apartment? Both of them? Together?”

“Well, yeah. Buffy had suggested that we do something, you know, couply, because since she’s been dating Spike she’s felt kind of isolated from us. So we rented a movie and ate dinner together. Well, we ate. Spike just kind of…slurped,” Willow says.

“B-but he was really polite and nice and all,” Tara says. “H-he asked us nicely to heat up his blood and afterwards rinsed out the mug.”

“And he was really funny, too. What was that story he was telling? About the guard outside Buckingham Palace?”

“Oh, yeah! The Palace guard!” Tara says, catching a laugh with her hand.

“O.K….Spike jumped out at this Palace Guard one night. And you know how they’re supposed to be all still and quiet all the time and not react to anything? Well, when he saw Spike in his game face, he didn’t try to run or hide. He just stood there like he was supposed to---

“An…and Spike heard s-something falling on the pavement.”

“The guy was so scared he peed his pants! And Spike was laughing too hard to bite him so he just walked away!”

“What did he yell up to the balcony before he left? Something like…”

“Oh, I know!” Willow cups a hand over her mouth. “‘Hey, Vicki! You better get one of your nannies out here. Soldier boy needs a fresh nappy.’”

While Tara and Willow collapse on each other in a fit of giggles, Anya and Xander look on with parted lips and blank stares. When it is perceived that their audience is not as amused as they are, the two witches recover themselves.

“I guess it was the way S-Spike told it,” Tara says sheepishly, playing with one of the tassels on her macramé purse.

“So, the moral of this story is, if you’re ever cornered by a vicious, blood sucking vampire, just wet your pants and hope that the guy is a happy-go-lucky kind of vamp who will later relate the story in an amusing anecdote during a dinner party,” Xander says.

“Actually, honey, you may have already done that. Remember last year when we went on Patrol with Riley?” Anya says, lowering her eyes.

“Huh? Anya!” Xander scolds.

“Well, honey, you had just had a Big Gulp and I warned you not to drink so much soda before Patrol. And there was just a little bit of leakage. Nothing too noticeable.”

“I DID NOT wet my pants on Patrol,” Xander expostulates angrily. “Not then or ever!

“OK, honey. Must have been the moonlight shining on something…shiny. I didn’t mean to make you angry.” Anya strokes her humiliated boyfriend’s arm.

“Look, can we talk about something not related to public urination and Spike? Seems like whenever we get together these days, we’re always talking about Spike and Buffy, Spike and Buffy, Spike and Buffy. There has to be something else to talk about. Anya and I are getting married in the New Year.”

“Oh! Wedding! We can talk wedding,” Willow brightens. “Have you decided what the bridesmaids are going to wear yet, Anya? Because I think the last time I talked to you, you had picked out some gowns that you thought were too Buffy-friendly.”

“Yeah, I scrapped those dresses. Back to square one. I can’t have Buffy looking better than the bride. As it is now, everyone’s going to be looking at the best man’s hair. Do you think if I asked him nicely and maybe slipped him a little cash, Spike might tone the color down a little? Just for the ceremony?”

“Spike’s going to be your best man, Xander?” Willow asks.

“No! No! Absolutely not! Anya, where in the hell did you get that idea from?”

“Well, he’s the only guy you know. Except for Giles. And I’ve already asked him to escort me down the aisle. He can’t do both. That would make it even more glaringly obvious that you don’t have any male friends.”

“I do so have male friends. There’s…there’s…” He thinks for a minute. “Oz! I could ask Oz to be my best man. I’m sure he’d come back to Sunnydale to be in my wedding. He’d be a great best man…” He watches Willow’s expression crumble before his eyes. “But I’m not going to ask him because…that would be awkward, wouldn’t it?”

“God…we’re all so inter-related. We’re like some dangerously inbred clan of hillbillies,” Willow notes.

“I think Spike would make a nice best man,” Anya says. “Buffy says that he has his own tuxedo. Armani, even.”

“I’m not asking Spike to be my best man. PERIOD! I’ll ask someone from work. Joe, maybe.”

“Joe? Who the hell is Joe?” Anya asks pointedly.

“I don’t know his last name. We’re not that close. I think it might be Ramstein. Or Flores.”

“They’re both so similar,” Anya says with a devious smile.

Buffy comes up for air from Spike’s kiss, feeling a little light-headed. She slowly begins to realize that someone is speaking to her.

“Uh…Buffy…before your boyfriend suctions off the rest of your face, could you take some time out of your fevered embrace to go over to table five?”

Buffy grins. “Do you hear someone talking?”

“Yeah. I think it’s wanker boy behind the bar,” Spike replies, kissing her softly down her cheek.

“Thought so,” Buffy says with a note of dismay in her voice. “Honey, I gotta work.”

“I know. It’s always work, work, work with you,” he says, reluctantly relinquishing her to her duty.

“All play and no work makes Buffy a dead girl,” Buffy reminds him, trailing a finger down his ultra-sensitive neck. “Hey. The gang’s here. Why don’t you go over to their table and have some quality Scooby time.”

“Oh, great. And perhaps at some point you can serve me a Scotch and holy water.” He picks up his beer from the bar and takes a lengthy swig.

“Go easy on those, OK? I don’t want you driving my little sister around with a buzz.”

“Not to worry, Buffy. This is the one and only of the evening. I promise. Got a flask of fresh piggy blood for back-up. I watched the butcher drain the sow myself.”

“That’s entertainment.”

He smiles as he thinks to himself, “That’s what passes for entertainment in Spike’s world since you stole my heart, you little demon.”

As Spike strides over to the Scooby table, Xander is the first to notice is impending arrival.

“Oh, God. Here comes Slim Shady now,” he glowers, hunching his shoulders.

“Hello, all,” Spike says, swooping down among them in a flourish of black leather. “What are we on about tonight?”

“We were just talking about you being Xander’s best man in our wedding,” Anya announces.

“Anya! You know, sometimes I think that vengeance demon quirk of yours never really went away,” Xander says.

“Harris!” Spike says in mock jubilation. “I never knew you felt that way about me! I’d be honored to stand up for you at your nuptials to Chatty Kathy Capitalist. I’ve even got my own penguin suit.”

“I know. Armani,” Anya says with a grin.

Spike raises his bottle to Anya and takes a hearty swig.

“Spike, you’re not going to be my best man. You’re not even invited to the wedding!”

“Xander!” Willow chides, her eyes telegraphing a warning glare.

“Oh, really? Well, perhaps I’m not on the guest list per se, but I’ll be there’s an invitation just waitin’ to be addressed to Buffy Summers and guest. And guess who that guest will be?”

“Well, Buffy must like her guests extra crispy. Because it’s going to be a daytime ceremony. In the park. Out under the blazing hot sun.”

“No! Not a daytime ceremony,” Anya says. “At night. At Saint Catherine’s Chapel.”

“Since when?” Xander asks.

“I saw the place a few weeks ago. It’s charming, kind of rustic. Not too many religious icons inside that scream, ‘You’re in a church. Get out your rosary beads and pray, you heathen.’ And it has a wide center aisle that’s big enough for the train on my gown.”

“I-it’s a nice chapel,” Tara says. “It would be really pretty at night. All lit up with candles.”

“Oh, I agree,” Willow remarks. “I’m not much on the Christian symbolism myself. I mean, hello, Jewish Wiccan lesbian here. But that place is sooo pretty. Kinda secluded. Just the right mix of Gothic elegance and modern functionality.”

“I don’t want a church wedding,” Xander opines with a frown. “If we’re going to do the church thing, I’d much rather just show up at the house of the Justice of the Peace at 2:00 in the morning, dressed in our pajamas and with the ink on our license still drying as we say our ‘I do’s.’”

“Why don’t we go the whole romantic route and fly to Vegas. Find one of those those drive through chapels where people make it legal talking through the speaker of a fat Elvis sculpture,” a clearly annoyed Anya replies.

Spike sits quietly in wonder, looking at his beer, wishing that there were ten more in front of him. As the bickering couple’s talk swells around him, blocking out even the music being piped in from the speakers overhead, he thinks about why he’s there. He has been included in this exclusive circle of Buffy’s friends for over a year now. The transaction from archenemy to comrade in arms was not an easy one and still his loyalties are questioned, he is certain. Even he has to ask himself sometimes, “Do I really belong with these people?” He feels very distant from their talk, from their troubles, from their nonsensical observances of daily minutia. Often there is in him some urge to stand up and scream and break away. This can’t be his life now. William didn’t become a vampire, get corralled by a government-implanted chip and fall in love with the Slayer just to sit and hear a former demon and a current window licker squabble about a wedding that has doom written all over it in permanent magic marker. Hasn’t he been punished enough?

While he’s sitting there, he feels slender arms embrace him from behind. He catches a hint of vanilla scent in the air, more pungent than the smell of stale beer and long-spent cigarette butts.

“How’s my baby doing?” Buffy purrs into his ear.

He gathers her arms around his aged leather coat. “Baby’s doing fine, love. Just talking about Xander and Anya’s wedding.”

“Oh!” Buffy says brightly. “Have you guys thought about St. Catherine’s Chapel? I love that place.”

“We were just talking about that. Your Spidey senses must have been working a minute ago,” Willow says.

Buffy laughs from a secret joke in her head. “Oh, God…I was just thinking about when we were planning on getting married, Spike.”

“What?” Xander says.

“Huh?” Willow asks.

“Pardon?” Spike spits out.

Buffy rolls her eyes. “Silly! Willow’s spell. You and me all snuggly in Giles’ living room? Plastic bride and groom who were the perfect little us?” she says, smoothing his hair back.

Spike takes a breath. “Uh…yeah. I remember.”

“Spike lips…lips of Spike…” she says breathily, giving him a quick smack on the mouth.

“Hmmm…Buffy taste in my mouth…” he smiles, returning the kiss.

As she settles into his arms under the watchful eyes of the embarrassed quartet, he nestles his nose in her floral-scented hair and wraps his arms around her as tightly as he can. His whole universe in contained in this little person. She seems so fragile, yet as she returns the embrace, he feels the strength flowing through her. The strength that used to send him flying into brick walls and once put him in a wheel chair. It’s that same strength that seems to carry him from day to day, that lifts him out of the rubble his life once was and makes things right, day after day. He loves her with his entire being, so much so that he swears his heart sometimes jumps in his chest. He feels something move in him whenever she’s around, something that reigns over all other feelings he keeps deep inside of him. It’s something he has never felt before and it’s something that tells him he really never loved anyone until he loved Buffy Summers.

A stiff breeze rattles the small stained glass window on the wall overlooking the cramped meeting space in the basement of St. Catherine’s Chapel. Around a rectangular table, a group of a dozen parishioners sits, armed with Styrofoam cups of tepid coffee, date books and well sharpened number two pencils. The group consists mostly of women, all wearing non-church, but still respectable relaxed casual ensembles. The men still wear their after church football watching uniforms of jeans and sweatshirts. A small artificial Christmas tree blinks its multi-colored lights cheerfully in the corner. On the wall beside it hangs a picture of Jesus sitting on a rock, his hands clasped, his face hopeful, yet full of fear.

“New business,” Mr. Chapman announces. He recognizes a stocky, red-faced gentleman sitting in the corner. “Yes, Stanley?”

Stanley Walliston stands, notebook in hand. “The youth group still needs chaperones for their ski trip to Big Bear on the 7th of January. If anyone is interested, there’s a sign-up sheet in the vestibule.”

“The car wash must have been a success, then,” Mr. Chapman notes.

“Tremendous,” Mr. Walliston says with great pride. “We raised over $500 in one afternoon.”

“And are you planning another one before the trip?” Mr. Chapman asks.

“It depends on how dirty the cars get between now and then,” Mr. Walliston replies.

There is a slight tittering of laughter among the parishioners. Mr. Chapman resumes the meeting with a smile.

“Anyone else? New business?”

A woman in a teal sweater set raises her hand.

“Phyllis?” Mr. Chapman nods.

Phyllis Wright clears her throat. “The Women’s Club will be asking for Campbell’s Soup labels again for the local food pantry. And it’s hard to think about this now, with it being so early in the holiday season, but we will be taking the Christmas tree down on January 6, so we’ll need some of the sturdier men in the congregation to help out.”

“Fine. I will see if anyone is available at the next Pastor Parish meeting,” Mr. Chapman says. “Anyone else? New business?”

Again, Phyllis Wright raises her hand. Timidly, she begins, “Yes. Can we talk a little about the sesquicentennial?”

The room is suddenly prickling with a certain discomfort that everyone can feel, as though an uninvited guest has just made his presence known.

“I know this isn’t something we like to talk about, but…if it’s going to happen-

“Well, the church will mark its 150th birthday next year. There’s no doubt about that. But if you’re referring to the events surrounding the sesquicentennial, we have it all in writing. Brother Francis swore with his last breath that it would happen.”

The parishioners look down in their collective doom as silence descends on the gathering. For a few minutes, the blinking Christmas lights are louder than anything in the room.

“But the child?” Mr. Walliston asks.

Mr. Chapman’s lips form a straight line. He looks over at the stern-faced woman to his left who has dutifully been recording the minutes of the meeting since the first official word was spoken. “Perhaps Mrs. Singleton can shed some light on this.”

Mrs. Singleton flashes an assured smile as she looks confidently about the room. “The child will be delivered to us in plenty of time for Brother Francis’ ascension.”

“It has to be soon. That thing is only going to get bigger,” Mrs. Wright says worriedly, looking at the saucer-sized hole in the middle of the parquet floor. Soon all eyes are on the hole. A curl of smoke twirls menacingly in the air above the opening as a gurgle is heard from down below.

“The child will be conceived and will be born,” Mrs. Singleton says sharply. “I have my sources.”

CHAPTER TWO

The escalator moves jerkily to the second tier of the mall. Buffy shifts her packages restlessly, wishing that she could just run up ahead of everyone else. But presently a frowning woman with two unruly children is blocking her way. In the thirty seconds Buffy has been on the escalator, the woman has threatened the children with bodily harm at least twenty times, but apparently, “I swear to God! I’m going to whip you both until Christmas day if you don’t behave!” isn’t much of a warning for them.

Buffy has her own unruly child to contend with. Spike stands beside her, drumming his fingers on the railing as it glides beneath his hand. He jostles the Williams-Sonoma shopping bag, nearly banging it into the backside of one of the children in front of them.

“Honey, I know you’re bored,” Buffy says softly as she touches his hand. “I just have two more shops to go to and then we can go home, OK?”

“You said that sixteen shop ago, Buffy,” Spike says with a dramatic sigh.

“Well, you can blame the sluggish economy for all the 50% sales going on. Anyway, I told you that you didn’t have to come with me.”

“Yeah, but that’s only because we haven’t been spending a lot of time together lately. Between your 72-hour work week at the Bronze and your moonlighting in the cemetery.”

She knows this is true. When she gets home from the Bronze, it’s almost always 3:00 in the morning. If she goes on Patrol afterward, sometimes that puts her arrival time at 5:00. Here lately she has been coming in just as the sun is cresting on the horizon. It’s been almost a week since they have made love and that is unusual for them. But Buffy knows it’s too soon to start singing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” just yet. Once Christmas is over, things will get back to normal, she has promised him.

All this extra work for one day out of the calendar year seems ludicrous to him. He has begged and pleaded with her to not buy him anything at all. When she keeps on about it, he will suggest something frivolous like a Chia pet or a Clapper. The other night he was watching a show about Hugh Hefner and mentioned something about wanting a silk smoking jacket and he briefly caught the snap of a light bulb going on over Buffy’s head. He just hopes that she has also purchased a pipe so that he can complete the look.

Big Bad is spending Christmas with his two little bunnies, he thinks with a smile that turns into a laugh when he really reflects of the absurdity of what he has just thought.

“What? What’s so funny?” Buffy asks.

“Oh, nothing.” Then his thoughts turn naughty as he imagines Buffy in a bunny outfit, doing the “dip” while she serves him a drink from a platter. “Will there be anything else, sir?” she asks huskily. “Just this,” he answers. And suddenly she’s not wearing the bunny outfit anymore. And he’s finding uses for that powder puff tail that tease and delight her… “Mmmm…” he says aloud.

Buffy looks at him quizzically, but says nothing. Where ever he is, he seems to be enjoying himself.

They have finally finished the climb to the second floor and Buffy pulls out the list from her purse one more time. “OK, we got Xander and Anya covered down at Williams-Sonoma. Now Willow and Tara…I’m thinking…something a little Stevie Nicksish?”

“Fine. Let’s look for a shop called the Edge of the Seventeen-Year-Old White Winged Dove then.”

“I don’t think we’re going to find it here,” she says with a smile, taking his hand.

“24-Hour Wicca World?”

“No.”

“Lesbian Toys R Us?”

“Will you stop it!” she says, jabbing at him playfully.

“Let’s have a look at the Mall Guide over here. Oh! Men’s Wear! We’re bound to find something for Willow there.”

“Look, are you going to help me or are you just going to keep making jokes?”

“Can I do both?”

Buffy sighs and sets down her packages as she peruses the mall guide. There is a fair-haired girl rocking a stroller blocking her view and she politely excuses herself. When she is finally able to get a good look at the second floor map, the girl studies her.

“Buffy? Buffy Summers?” the girl asks incredulously.

Buffy stares at the girl, drawing a complete blank. “Yes?”

“Oh, my God! I can’t believe it! I haven’t seen you for ages!”

“Yeah, it’s been a while…hasn’t it?” Buffy says, a disingenuous smile lighting her face as she girl dives in for a hug. Over her shoulder, a baffled Spike mouths, “Who the hell…?” and Buffy pantomimes a “no fucking clue” look.

“God, it seems like yesterday that we were in Mr. Bronstein’s French class, laughing at him reading Candide with that ridiculous Bronx accent,” the girl continues.

“Yeah, that was a scream,” Buffy says.

“I’ll never forget the night I was coming out of the Bronze and that guy attacked me from behind. You came out of nowhere and threw the guy off me like he was nothing and he just…disappeared in a pile of cardboard boxes. I thought to myself then, ‘Candyce Phelps, you’re one lucky girl to know someone like Buffy Summers.’ You so deserved that Class Protector award.”

“Oh…thank you, Candyce,” Buffy asks, grateful for the name-drop while simultaneously flipping through a yearbook in her mind. Nothing about this girl jars a single memory. There were a lot of students at Sunnydale High. Were Xander, Willow, Oz and Cordy the only ones she ever bothered to learn the names of?

“So, what about you? What have you been doing? Is this your husband?” Candyce asks, nodding to Spike.

“What? No! We’re not married yet. This is my boyfriend, Spike,” Buffy says, thinking it peculiar that just because Candyce has excellerated her maturity that Buffy must have done so as well.

“Oh, hello, Spike. Nice to meet you,” Candyce says with scrutiny in her gaze. “Did you go to Sunnydale High, too?”

“Me? No. I went to school…abroad,” he answers.

“Oh, then how did you two meet? At work?”

Buffy and Spike do a slow turn towards each other, knowing that if they answer yes, it will still be sort of true.

“We used to work for rival companies and they…merged at the beginning of the year.” Spike explains slowly. “Now we work together.”

“Oh really? What do you do?”

Buffy and Spike share another wary look. Spike is the cooler bullshitter, so she allows him to proceed.

“We take care of…pests. We’re in the business of pest removal. Earwigs, mice, cockroaches, that sort of thing.”

In the aftermath of Spike’s explanation, Buffy is a little miffed at herself for passing the baton on this one.

“So…you’re…exterminators?”

Spike puffs his cheeks. “If you want to give it a name, yes.”

“Then maybe you can help me out with the black widow spider problem I have in my basement. They’re very poisonous, you know.”

“We don’t do spiders,” Spike and Buffy reply in unison.

“Oh…” Candyce says. “Well, it’s very interesting that you do that. I’ve never had a real job, unless you count the after school thing I did at Baskin Robbins my senior year. I got married right out of high school. And then about six months ago, this little one happened to me,” Candyce says, bending to extract the blissfully sleeping bundle of joy from its stroller. She coos to the little one as it appears that he is waking and not wanting to, little fists pounding against its surfacing consciousness. “Shh…it’s OK, Matthew. There’s someone here that I want to meet. See the pretty blond girl? That’s Buffy Summers. She saved Mommy’s life one time.”

The child whimpers a little and claws at his face, blue eyes blinking, tiny lips smacking together. Buffy takes one little hand in hers and gives it a shake. “Hello, Matthew.”

“Would you like to hold him? I mean, if you think about it, if it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t be here because I wouldn’t be here.”

Buffy cannot remember the last time she held a baby. She thinks it might have been when her parents came home from the hospital with Dawn. But that hadn’t really happened at all…Suddenly the squirming child is in her arms and she is compelled to create a cradle in the crook of her elbow for him. The baby looks up at her with wonder in his eyes. There is something just to the left of Buffy’s head that is registering fascination in the infant. And in a flash, he grabs for one of Buffy’s oversized silver hoops and tugs with all the might of a pro wrestler.

“Oh, owee, owee, owee,” Buffy says, gently trying to remove the tight fist from her jewelry.

“Oh, I’ve put all my hoops away until Matthew is at least fourteen at this point. They’re all like crows at that age. They just love the shiny stuff. Come on, Matthew, honey. Let Buffy’s earring go.”

“That’s OK, I got it,” Buffy says after the little one’s hand has been fully disengaged from the hoop. “Whew! Little Bam Bam here.”

“Yeah, he’s a tough one. I just started him on solids, and I think he’s about ready to move onto steak and potatoes.”

“Honey, I found the juicer. It was 45% off, so I went ahead and got the coffee maker your mother wanted,” a masculine voice says as its owner approaches.

Buffy turns to see a tall, thin young man in a baseball cap and a beige barncoat swinging an over-stuffed shopping bag at his side.

“Oh, great! And did you find the George Foreman grill?” Candyce asks.

“Got that too,” the man beams.

“Wonderful! Stuart, this is an old friend of mine from high school. Buffy Summers. And this is her boyfriend, Spike.”

“Oh. Good to meet you both! Are you out shopping today?” he asks brightly.

No, we’re building to scale miniatures of early Ford motor cars, you window licker, Spike growls to himself.

“Oh, yes. Shopping. Gotta do the shopping thing. Necessary evil this time of year,” Buffy natters on.

Buffy hands the baby back to his rightful owner, having to disentangle the baby’s fist from a lock of her golden hair. She laughs it off as the baby settles back into his mother’s arms.

“I know a lot of people think I’m too young to have a baby,” Candyce says with a certain sadness in her voice. “But two years ago, Stu was diagnosed with leukemia. We didn’t even think we’d be able to have a child with all the radiation treatments he had to undergo. So, during his last remission, we took a chance. And we got our little miracle.”

Her husband purses his lips and stares uncomfortably at the floor, scuffing a black tile with the toe of his Timberland.

“We don’t know how much time we have together,” Candyce continues. “So we figured we might as well go for it while we had the chance. Stu’s been in remission for over a year now, but we’re careful not to use words like cured just yet. Right now we just call ourselves blessed.”

Stuart begins to sniffle a little and for a moment, Buffy thinks he is about to burst into tears. But then he says, “Oh, honey, right now I think we’re being blessed with an early Christmas present from our boy. We should probably find a changing room.”

Buffy didn’t want to be rude, but she thought she smelled something when she was holding Matthew, and not just the grilled knockwurst/chow mein/pizza combo wafting up from the food court below.

“That’s our little pooter!” Candyce says with apology in her eyes. “On that note, I think I’ll make my way over to the ladies room. It was so nice to see you again, Buffy. We should get together sometime.”

“Yes, we should,” Buffy says, the full awkwardness of the situation hitting her with full-force.

The couple make a swift departure, heading over to the restrooms between the Foot Locker and the Wicks and Things. Buffy continues to stand there for a few minutes, watching the pair, being obviously such a pair. She imagines when they sit down for meals at restaurants, the waiter always asks politely, “And what will your wife be having tonight?” She thinks about their mailbox, crammed with Christmas cards, all addressed to Mr. and Mrs., with cheery return address labels in the corner. She thinks about how they think their time together will be short and fingers the watch around her neck. The ticking now throbs in her ears like her own heartbeat.

“What was that?” Spike says to her when they are alone.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice a ghost. They are walking now and are soon making their way past the glass storefront of a boutique whose mannequins all look like S & M aficionados.

He takes her free hand and gives it a squeeze. “What you said to them.”

“What I said to them?”

“Will you stop answering my questions with more questions.?”

“Well? What did I say?”

“Sweetheart! ‘We’re not married…yet.’ As though to imply one day…we may be?”

She didn’t think about it that way when she said it. Or maybe she just wasn’t thinking about what she was saying at all. It just popped out of her mouth. But now she is seeing that her words carried some resonance, some promise for him. She cannot say that she hasn’t thought about it. While leafing through Anya’s bridal magazines she will sometimes pause over the picture of a radiant bride all decked out in a white meringue of a dress and imagine her pert and dewy face under the tulle veil. When she wakes up next to him in the morning, or sometimes crawls into bed with him in the morning as it has been in the previous week, she knows that this is how she always wants it to be. Just the eight to ten hours she spends at work away from him are too long some days and when she comes home to him, she knows she really is home. If there is another person out there in the world for whom she is meant, she sometimes hopes that fate will reveal the identity of that man before she allows herself to fall more in love.

Now they are in front of a jewelry store. Some cruel machination of circumstance has chosen this place for this particular part of their conversation. Willingly, she allows Spike to lead her over to the window where an array of emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and diamond rings peek out from their velvet box shells. Her face pressed against the glass, she is dazzled by the display of the jeweled promises of eternal love. She feels her lover at her side, knows his presence before he even touches her, always. He is a shadow in his black ensemble, the scent of leather a lash against her senses. He is standing behind her, his arms folded tightly around her torso, his head on her shoulder. His lips touch the rim of her ear, dragging sensually as he breathes into the sensitive canal.

“Pick the one that strikes your fancy, love. I’ll run in and buy it straight away,” he whispers, kissing the side of her face.

She is as an infant, infatuated with shiny things. She reaches for the ring…

All at once she looks at the mirror behind the display. She sees herself, but she does not see him. She can see the indentions his hands are making on her camel coat and the impression of his chin on her shoulder, but not him. She catches a glimpse of two familiar figures, just behind her, walking slowly by. She sees their smiles, just briefly, and hears the wheels of the stroller skitter across the uneven faux brick surface of the walkway. She turns her head to see them, loaded down with packages, some tucked into the bottom of their child’s vehicle along with a diaper bag and a teddy bear.

Spike has separated himself from her, standing a part to watch her thoughts because they are becoming clearer and clearer as Candyce and Stuart and little Matthew disappear from view.

His heart has felt many things since he fell for Buffy. Searing pain when he was continuously denied her affections. Soaring love when she finally accepted him. Absolute hopelessness when he thought he was going to lose her. Complete jubilation when she was restored to health. And every day he feels in his heart that this is right and this is what he wanted, even as poor romantic William so long ago. Now his heart feels a shadow brush against it, as though the end has been revealed to it, but not to the rest of him. This bond they have is like nothing he has ever had and he would fight to the death to keep it as is. It is something he had worked for, bled for, almost died for. His heart has been challenged, his very being has been challenged in their relationship. But she has known all along what he is.

He heard her say the words, “we’re not married yet” and he saw her hold a child. And he saw everything. More than a mirror could ever reveal.

“Darling, I can go in and buy you a ring, but I can’t give you everything,” he says, utterly embarrassed at the choke in his voice.

She hears this and her own heart gives way to an ache that shoots rays of pain down to her shoes. Too much, too too much like the past. The ugly past. Her mind flashes to a conversation held years before in a moonlit graveyard. She is struck by an unsettling wave of déjà vu. She wants to find a brake pedal and put a stop to all thoughts of forever and love always because it just doesn’t happen. Not to her, anyway.

She turns to him and sees his pained expression. He has that anxious stare of a tennis player waiting for a serve. She wants to hold him, cradle him, tell him everything will be all right. But at the same time, she wants the same for herself because she is quaking inside, wanting to dissolve into tears. But she can’t. She has to be strong. She has to be this woman of steel or else all the barriers will come down and she will be vulnerable to attack.

“You’re my forever man,” she says, touching his temple before he captures her hand and slides it down to his lips.

“Am I?” he says with urgency in his voice.

“Always and forever,” she says, drawing him close.

She means it for now, he tells himself. She doesn’t realize what forever means. Forever literally means forever to a vampire because they have the gift of everlasting unlife. But she is not immortal. She will die one day and he will be alone. He would never turn her because she would not be who she is, the girl he loves, the lady whose warm body lies beside him at night, the sweet little bird who chirps about defeating the evil beasties in the world, but not him. He is sacred to her. He knows this when she opens her eyes in the morning and looks at him and smiles, brushing his cheek and saying, “hmmm…”

He needs her more than she needed him that night her defenses were exhausted and she invited him in. He needs her more than she needed him when she asked him to protect Dawn. He needs her more than she needed him when he was the only one who

knew the formula to divest her of her fever. He needs her more than blood.

It’s as though a trap door to his life without Buffy has opened now. He couldn’t…he wouldn’t be able to go on. He knew that when he saw her fading in the hospital months before. He ached to hold back the shadows that threatened to steal her. And now, in the cheery atmosphere of the Christmastime mall, with all its paper mache snowmen and animatronic carolers singing tidings of comfort and great joy, he is desperate.

Dawn…bitty Buffy…not so much. She will die too. Not as soon as her sister. How long do Slayers live? A score and five is all. Twenty five years. That’s the record. Twenty is what she has now, twenty-one is what she will have in February. I have her birthday on the calendar for the next year already. There will be a cake and I will be there beside her, cutting into it…

Twenty-five years is all I’ve got. I will die. He won’t. Not in my lifetime. I will never, ever let him die. He means too much to me. He has to stay and take care of…Dawn…She’s like our child. I guess. Though most of the time I’m the disciplinarian and he’s the innocent by-stander. He told me that he thought that Dawn was our daughter, but…

“Excuse me,” someone says.

Both Slayer and vampire move away to allow a woman to pass by them with a dual stroller. Twins.

Buffy’s gaze follows the woman and her stroller. Twins!

“Buffy, I only want to make you happy,” Spike tells her. “But if you want something more…something more than I can give you---

She really wants to cry. She hates that she ever gave a thought to someone else out there who might be a more suitable person for her. She reaches for him, tears welling in her eyes until he is just a blur of black against the white backdrop of the mall. “Oh, Sweetheart. There’ll never be anyone else for me but you.”

CHAPTER THREE Travis and Dawn enter the silent apartment hand in hand. She didn’t see Spike’s car in the lot and she saw that there were not lights on from the outside. But still, as they walk in, she feels the need to call for them just in case they are having an intimate moment in the bedroom.

“Well, I guess they haven’t gotten back from the mall yet,” Dawn says with a smile.

“So we’re alone?” Travis asks, moving closer to her.

“Yep. All alone.”

The awkwardness of the moment envelops them both for just a second. It is not often that they find themselves alone. They are always either with the gang at the library or here in the apartment with Spike playing the watchful chaperone. He sometimes even sits between them on the sofa while they’re watching television. With the lights out and their youthful hormones raging to be unleashed, Dawn laces her fingers with Travis’ and leads him over to the sofa.

Travis gave Dawn her first real kiss. It occurred the night after the fall formal, on the dance floor, to Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open.” She knew that if he was going to kiss her, it was going to be then. She remembers how his eyes darkened as he leaned into her and how her heart pounded inside of her. She was embarrassed, really, that her excitement was so audible. His lips were so warm over hers and his hands traveled up and down her back as he drew her closer and closer. She was startled when his tongue danced across the underside of her top lip and even more so when it found its way inside her mouth, but she accepted it and thought with a girlish giggle in her head, “So this is frenching…”

They sit on the edge of the sofa, staring ahead into the darkness before finally turning to each other. Dawn reaches out to smooth back Travis’ ever-unruly blond locks from his forehead and his hand goes to her brown tresses as well. She loves it when he runs his hands through her hair. She inclines her head to his, looking up into his lash-laden stare. His lips brush hers very gently and she closes her eyes. His arms go around her and she falls against the cushion of the sofa, allowing him to lay his torso on top of hers. As he kisses her, she threads her fingers through his hair. His hands are now roving over her shoulders, down her arms.

“So, Dawn,” he says, kissing her down the side of her face. “How are Spike and Buffy these days?”

Dawn freezes in his arms and regards him curiously. This is the last question she expects to hear from him in such a passionate embrace. “They’re fine. Why?”

“I was just wondering. They seem like such a cool couple.”

“They are a cool couple. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. Mentioning my sister and her boyfriend while we’re kissing? Big mood killer,” Dawn intones threateningly.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-

“No worries,” she replies, rubbing her nose against his. “I’ll let you off with a warning this time.”

They are kissing again as they hear the locks being undone at the door. A shared panic goes through them like a bolt of electricity.

“Oh, God…” Dawn says, springing up from the sofa. She quickly rearranges her shirt and smoothes down her mussed hair. She is turning on the lamp just as Buffy and Spike cross the threshold.

“Hi!” Dawn says brightly as her sister’s questioning gaze peruses the room.

“Hey,” Buffy says slowly, noting the darkness in the room and Travis’ huddled position on the sofa. “What are you guys doing?”

“We were just…um…we were watching TV and there was nothing on…so we turned it off. Just before you came in,” Dawn explains, twitching nervously under her sister’s knowing glare.

“Uh huh,” Buffy says.

Dawn notices that Spike’s nostrils are flaring as he looks about the room. Her heart begins to pound. Oh, God! He knows!

“I’d better be going,” Travis says, moving off the sofa and closing in on the door. “Mom will be expecting me.”

There’s something about that phrase that strikes Spike as being a bit familiar. He doesn’t exactly know why…He shrugs it off and makes his way past the trio in the living room and heads for the bedroom before fighting the impulse to grab Travis by the neck and squeeze the life out of him becomes and impossibility. Making out in my home with my Nibblet. I’ll dream about killing the bastard tonight…

Shortly Buffy does join him in the bedroom. He is lying on their bed, his hands behind his head, the Christmas gifts still bagged and on the floor when he told Buffy he would put them away. Annoyed, she takes up the task herself.

As she is stuffing the gifts into the closet, she says, “Honey, do you have something to do tonight?”

“Not really,” he answers.

“Um…could you have something to do tonight?”

Spike rouses himself from his prostrate position slightly and props his head on his open palm. “Why? What’s going on?”

Buffy smoothes her hands down her slight hips and purses her lips. “I really, really need to have some sort of talk with Dawn tonight.”

“What? About her and Travis playing out a Marcy Playground song in the living room?”

“Exactly. Things are getting a little too hot and heavy between the two of them a little too fast. The last thing we need is for her to come home pregnant one day.”

“Well, sweetheart, I did smell full arousal in there, but I didn’t smell the aftermath of a geyser gusher.”

“Yeah, but it’s only a matter of time,” Buffy says, gathering more gifts to hide in the closet. The most obvious place for hidden gifts, but the only place in a two bedroom apartment.

“You sure you don’t want me around for back-up?”

“No, I think having you here would just embarrass her.”

“Too right,” Spike concedes, jumping up from the bed. “Well, I’ll find something to do, I suppose. Perhaps there’s a game of kitten poker on somewhere.”

“Kitten poker?” Buffy asks, thinking that in all her life she has never heard those two words so close together in a sentence. “I hope that’s a euphemism for something.”

“Sadly, no,” Spike says, grabbing his duster. “But it’s all I got now. And if I win any kittens, I promise I’ll either set them free or give them to worthy street urchins who would otherwise have empty stockings this Christmas.”

There are no games of kitten poker this night.

Spike has no other course but to result to plan B. B standing for the Bronze.

The band plays a slow song heavy on the effects from the Casio organ the keyboardest plays as though he has opened an early Christmas gift and is just getting used to the keys. The bands have been a miserable lot lately. He hasn’t heard any good music since an alt band from Fresno played Blink 182 songs one night. He is ashamed that he likes the trio of would-be punkers whose gimmick is to run around naked on stage, but he has found some value in their tunes, something that reminds him of the three chord perfection of garage bands past.

He goes to the bar and orders something out of the ordinary for him. A whisky. Neat.

The bartender knows him by sight and nods to him as he pours the drink. “How’s Carla tonight?”

“Carla’s fine,” Spike replies, rifling through Buffy’s tip money sandwiched between the leather of his wallet. “Looks like she did well last night.”

The bartender shakes his head. “I’d never say it to her face, but Buffy’s the best thing to happen to this dive since that Troll wrecked the place.”

As Spike hands him a five dollar bill, he decides to take what the bartender has said as a compliment to his lady. It is a much better bar now. Except for the extinction of the blooming onion. There has to be some way to bring that back.

Spike walks away from the bar, shoving his change into his interior pocket. As he is doing this, a brutish shoulder brushes against his.

“Hey! What’s it?” Spike says indignantly. Then he sees the person who has bumped into him. Harris. “Oh. One of those happy coincidences.”

“Spike?” is all Xander says.

“No, Bob Saget. But I get that all the time.”

Xander’s lower lip curls in a near-sneer if he were cool enough to pull off such an expression. “Look, don’t bother me tonight. I’m not in the mood.”

“And you expect me to wait for a night when you want to be bothered? Harris, I may be immortal, but I am terribly impatient.”

“Don’t you have something else to do tonight?,” Xander says, with arms crossed.

“I suppose I could crack open your cranium and hold you hostage. Oops! Been there, done that, would have gotten the tee shirt, if I could have screen printed ‘Xander and Willow Hostagefest 1998’ in a more timely manner.”

“Yeah. Real funny, Spike. Makes me wish we were better friends.”

“That was the worst scheme I ever tried to pull off. If Buffy hadn’t been so into Poof Daddy, she would have known I had you and Will chained up in the factory. But at least it gave you a chance to get cozy with Red. Ever think that’s why she got all into the muff diving?”

Xander slices two hands through the space in front of him. “If you only knew what I’ve been through this evening…Nah, forget it. You’d only use it to your advantage in your continuous piss off Xander quest.”

“Aww, Harris. Something wrong? You know I’m always here for you,” Spike says, nearly giving into laughter as his mock earnestness leaves Xander momentarily flustered.

“Well, you’re always here,” Xander says.

“Yeah? You too. I think we’re what they call regulars.” Spike takes a sip of his drink. “Where’s your screamin’ demon lover tonight?”

“If you’re referring to my fiancée, she’s at the Magic Box helping Giles with end-of-the-year inventory. What about yours?”

“Home. Practicing some parental guidance with the Nibblet. We’re the only Scoobies about tonight.”

“Since when did you become a Scooby?”

“I think sleeping with the Slayer qualifies me for full-Scooby status.” Spike cocks his head to one side. “Join me for a drink?”

Xander shrugs. “Might as well. The day couldn’t get any worse.”

“Ho ho, my friend,” Spike chortles. “You’ve been a Scooby longer than I have. You should know better than to say a thing like that. Things can get a lot worse and they usually do.”

Dawn is in the living room watching TV when Buffy pulls out the wrapping paper and tape from the space over the washer and dryers. She peers around the division between the hall and the living room, finding Dawn nearly comatose in front of a much-repeated Behind the Music episode.

“Dawnie?” Buffy says. “You want to help me wrap?”

Dawn remains silent for a few minutes, staring with sudden interest at the screen. She rises, putting an index finger up in the air. “One second. I think this band is just about to discover that their dreams of success are becoming a nightmare.”

“Well, when you’re done Journey’ing, will you join me in the kitchen? I could use some help with prezzie wrapping.”

“Is it lecture time?” Dawn asks warily.

“No. Prezzie wrapping time.”

“OK,” Dawn says, getting up from the sofa in slow puppet movements. If this isn’t lecture time, I will eat the wrapping paper, and maybe a bow or two.

Buffy places a white shirt box on top of the underside of the wrapping paper and judges how much slack she will need to cover the right hand side without neglecting the left. Finally satisfied with her guesswork, she slices into the paper with the scissors.

“You can fill out the name tag,” Buffy says. “This one’s for Spike.”

“Is it the silk robe?” Dawn asks.

“Well, silken. 100% polyester. But I tore off the tag.”

“Four out of five vampires can’t tell the difference,” Dawn says, taking up a tag and filling it out with a black felt tip pen.

“So, um…” Buffy says, stuffing the ends of the paper into a neat triangle, “did you get Travis something for Christmas?”

“Yeah. Just a little something. He wanted the latest NOW collection, so I got it for him,” Dawn says, beginning to realize that she won’t be munching on paper anytime soon.

“And is he getting you something?”

“I guess. We are boyfriend and girlfriend. ‘Tis the season.”

“So you guys are in the gift-giving stage. Must be getting kind of serious,” Buffy says, cutting the other end of the paper and nodding to Dawn for some tape.

“Yeah. We’re serious,” Dawn says, giving Buffy a two-inch length of tape.

“So you’re dating exclusively?” Buffy asks, accepting the tape.

“Yeah. Why?” Dawn asks, knowing that the lecture will commence now.

Buffy pastes the tape to the side of the box and pauses. The parent in her doesn’t want to come out now. Buffy knows that long ago her mother did tell Dawn about the birds and the bees. Right after the Angel incident. But did she really? She remembers the muted talk from the hall. Dawn saying “ew.” Dawn promising, “If that’s what it’s like, I don’t wanna do it. That’s just yucky!”

“Dawnie,” Buffy says. She catches Dawn’s hand and semi-smiles. “Dawn. Remember when you found out Spike and I had slept together?”

“Found out? I was kind of in the audience,” Dawn says, staring down at her tape.

“Well, yeah. But the morning after. What I told you. About two adult people coming together?”

“Yes, I remember that,” Dawn nods, eyes still cast downward.

“You’re only fifteen years old. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I just don’t want you to waste it---

“Look, Buffy, Travis and I do make-out. But that’s all. I swear.”

Buffy relaxes her shoulders a bit. “But if things get a little steamy one night---

“We won’t do it. Not yet. We’re nowhere near ready for that.”

“Good,” Buffy says.

“You don’t have to lecture me about safe sex. I mean, condoms are talked about in school just about as much as calculus.” Dawn picks up another nametag. “I guess that’s the advantage of dating a vampire. No pregnancy, no disease.”

Something hugs Buffy from within. Her empty womb…She never even recognized its existence until she saw the strollers go by. It would certainly not be wise to conceive a child as a Slayer, with all the hazards of the job. She doesn’t have to worry about conception. Spike’s swimmers are dead. She feels them, cold, pooling inside of her when they make love, but they shove off and butterfly in the opposite direction.

“Yep,” Buffy says curtly, putting the final tapings on the package. “Big advantage there.”

“But if you could have his baby, would you?” Dawn asks.

This is not something Buffy expects from her little sister. But it is a question she has asked herself. It’s always a resounding yes. She would love to have the chance of feeling a life they created together growing and kicking inside of her. Someday. She is not ready for it yet. But someday, when she is older, perhaps…

“I knew that Angel and I could never have a baby together,” Buffy says, in a ghost voice as she places the name tag on the present. “But I was a teenager then.. It didn’t bother me so much then that we’d never be parents. But now with Spike…”

“It’s different?” Dawn offers.

Buffy caresses the name tag. To: Spike From: Buffy and Dawn. “Yeah. It’s different.”

Spike is ordering his third whisky when Xander comes back from the bathroom. And he finds the seat he was occupying has been taken.

“Thanks for saving my seat,” Xander says, noting also that his beer is gone.

“Sorry. This bloke asked me if someone was sitting there and I said no because you were in the gents. Besides, you didn’t ask me to save your seat.”

“Yes I did! I remember very clearly saying, ‘Spike, would you mind keeping my seat for me?’”

“Must not have heard you over the noise.”

“I thought vampires were supposed to have super hearing?”

“Depends on what’s being said,” Spike replies, regarding the amber liquid in his glass before taking a sip. “But I must say. You don’t take as long in the bog as the Slayer does.”

“I think that’s a universal girl thing. Anya is a big time bathroom enthusiast too.”

“You know, I just don’t get it. I swear that Buffy and Dawn have some sort of Batcave buried in the walls of the bathroom at home. They go in there and disappear for hours on end.”

Xander shakes his head. “I have no clue what Anya does when that door shuts but her prep time for bed is almost at the hour mark now. I have a feeling it has to do with all those jars and vials she picks up every time she goes to the mall. She said she never worried about the aging process when she was a vengeance demon, but now she’s very concerned.”

Spike nods knowingly. “I once tried to spend an hour in the bathroom, just to see what all the fuss was about. I’ve never been so bored in all my life. The time I spent dead and buried was scads more entertaining than that. Granted, I’m probably missing out on at least one aspect of the experience. You know---the whole mirror thing---but still. When I’m in there, I take my shower, I clean both sets of teeth, maybe sprinkle on a bit of cologne if Buffy and I are sorting out for the evening, and then I’m done.”

“Oh! And if you dare to spend more than twenty minutes in there---

“Hell and damnation! Of course, in my household I’m out-numbered. I wouldn’t dare go over my allotted time with both the Slayer and the Nibblet around.”

The patron beside Spike sees a familiar face in the crowd and takes his leave. Xander quickly reclaims his seat and flips through the contents of his wallet to pay for another beer. After the beer is poured and paid for, the two men sit in silence, listening to the band and nibbling on the complimentary peanuts on the bar. After a while, Xander breaks up the monotony.

“So, Spike,” he begins, “What is your standard answer to the age-old question, ‘Do I look fat in these jeans?’”

Spike grimaces slightly as he takes a sip of his drink. “There is no right answer to that question. If you say no, they think you’re lying and if you say yes, well, that just about puts them in rehab.”

Xander slams a hand down on the bar. “Exactly! And there’s no way Buffy or Anya could ever look fat in anything.”

“I’d sort of like to see Buffy with a little more flesh on her bones. A bit more like she was when she was still in high school. But as long as she keeps insisting on cooking for herself, I don’t see that happening. I’m all but on the dole paying for Dawn’s after dinner snacks. I’ll take her to the library and she’ll say, ‘Spike, can you run me by Jack N’ the Box? That noodle stuff Buffy made was kind of icky.’”

“So three years after Sunnydale High, Buffy’s still failing home ec?”

“Miserably. But she makes up for all her failings in the kitchen in the bedroom,” Spike says with a teasing smile. He reaches into his interior pocket for his cigarettes. “A little fire engine, she is. She does this wonderful little thing right after sex. Blows my mind every time. She’ll take me in her mouth because she loves to taste herself on that particular part of my anatomy. She’ll just start licking away, cleaning every bit of her off me until there’s nothing but me again. But she doesn’t stop there. She just keeps on licking away until I’m thrusting into her mouth, all the way to the back of her throat. And…Oh!” Spike flips open his lighter, taps the end of the cigarette to the flame and gives it a satisfying puff. “I’m on my way to my second happy.”

Through the curl of the smoke, Spike sees Xander’s absolutely awe-struck expression. His mouth forms a perfect O and his dark eyes appear to be glazing over from second hand arousal. Just when Spike thinks that Xander has gone into some sort of shock, he speaks.

“Wow. You mean…you mean you can…you can get that way so soon after…after…”

Spike takes another puff. “One of the many advantages of being undead, mate. But it usually doesn’t end there. After she’s had me in her mouth, she wants me to return the favor. Turn about is fair play and all. So I go down on her, chasin’ down my lads with my tongue, returning them to the fold, so to speak. And before long she’s holdin’ my head down there and screamin’ and beggin’ me not to stop. And then…” Spike scrapes a wayward shred of tobacco from his extended tongue. “Buffy taste in my mouth.”

“You don’t have to,” Xander looks around to see if anyone is listening before saying in a hushed voice, “use any fingers or anything?”

“All in the tongue, love. All in the tongue,” Spike says, licking his lips for added affect. “But then, of course, she usually wants me inside of her again after that. And then we’re back where we started.”

“So your average sex session lasts about…what, six hours?”

“Six, seven. Sometimes eight.”

“Eight? Eight hours of sex?” Xander says in a near squeal of incredulity that catches the interest of a previously indifferent couple sitting next to them. Xander mutes his voice. “How?”

“Well it’s all fairly simple, Harris. I’m a vampire, she’s a vampire slayer. She’s engineered to go head to head with the likes of me. We have similar stamina, similar strengths.”

“I see,” Xander says, still in thrall. “No wonder she only dates the forever young and the pulse-less. We warm-bloods just can’t compete.”

“Well,” Spike says, exhaling a gust of smoke. “Become a vampire. We’re always looking for new recruits.”

Xander looks as though for a minute he is considering this. But then he smirks as the reality of what Spike has said sinks in. “Nah. I keep my girl satisfied. You’ll never hear any complaints from her in that department. Why else would she be marrying me?”

“Yeah,” Spike says with a slight smile. “Why else?”

Spike gulps down the last of his whisky and Xander is ready for another beer as well. They both order their drinks and sink down into wordlessness. The band onstage takes a break and piped in music floods the bar. The instantly recognizable drum taps of the beginning of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” bleat from the speakers overhead and Spike, a little inebriated, can’t help playing a little dork air guitar as the guitar part commences. He is not too worried because he is in the company of a man whom he considers the essence of all things nebbish. Spike takes another swig, finishing it to his dismay. He quickly orders another. His head is slightly woozy. He skipped his blood feast before he left the apartment that night. Buffy bought a fresh batch of swine blood from the butcher that very day. He gulped down a pint at lunch, but had nothing for dinner. He realizes his error now. His stomach is growling and the liquor is going straight to his head. He wonders if the buffalo wings have any blood in them. The sauce is red…

He thinks about the afternoon spent at the mall. The gallery of jewels in front of his lady love. She could have had any one of them, if she had just said the word. And he would have proposed to her, if she had just realized that was what he was saying. But there were baby carriages in the way and too many distant thoughts about later years. He felt she glimpsed at her future that afternoon and really did want to see him in it. But she couldn’t see him in the mirror. She never would.

“So tell me,” Spike begins, “How did you do it?”

“Well,” Xander begins, clearing his throat, “At first, Anya was kind of demanding and wanted to be on top all the time. But then, eventually, we got to the point where we could do it missionary and even side by side---

“Harris, I wasn’t asking for the Masters and Johnson of your sex life. A bit of clarification here. How did you ask shop girl to marry you?”

“Oh, that!” he laughs nervously. “It was just us, in the basement of the Magic Shop and I had been wanting to ask her for the longest time and we found each other alone and she saw a stuffed bunny so she was vulnerable. That’s about it.”

“But how did you ask her? Did you just sort of slip the proposal into polite conversation or did you just spring it on her all at once?”

“I just showed her the ring. The explanation came later. Why?” Xander’s eyes widen and he begins to point an agitated finger Spike’s way. “Oh! Oh! You’re going to ask Buffy to marry you!”

Suddenly finding himself in found out mode, Spike cowers over his fresh whisky and mumbles, “Maybe.”

“No! You are! You’re going to ask Buffy to marry you!” All at once his expression falls. “You’re going to ask Buffy to marry you?”

“Thought about it,” Spike says, propping his jaw up on a curled fist as he swirls a finger around the remnants of his drink. “I tried today, actually.”

“And what happened?”

He tries to catch the attention of the bartender, effectively avoiding Xander’s full-on inquiry. There is something about fleeting youth that always pained Spike. Perhaps the ephemeral quality of the bud about to burst into maturity, only to die on the vine. Youthful preservation had always been a key when seeking prey on a hunt. It seemed unconscionable to let pretty people go to waste. But luckily enough for Xander, Spike does not view him as a pretty thing. He is expendable, could be drained and tossed into the heap of nameless victims. But luckily for Xander, he is Buffy’s friend. And for some reason tonight, he is Spike’s friend.

“She didn’t take me seriously,” Spike finally answers.

“But you’re going to ask her? Again? Eventually?”

“I will…eventually,” Spike says, inviting another gulp of his drink into his throat.

“Man oh Manashevitz, Spike. I thought I knew you better. With the death threats against all Slayers past and present. I never thought you actually loved her.”

“I do,” Spike says, canceling out all of Xander’s preconceived notions of his being a bad ass as his eyes fill with tears. “I adore her.”

“Just do me a favor.”

“I might,” Spike says, feeling the urge to sober up. This night is becoming a bit too Big Chill for him, and he’s already chilly enough.

“Just this once?” Xander pleads.

“What, then?” Spike asks, hoping that the dim of the club is obscuring the moisture in his eyes and that the droplet that has escaped his eye is appearing as unnatural sweat.

“Don’t get married before Anya and I do.”

Spike chuckles a bit, relieved that Xander has given him a reason to do so, so that his sobs are mistaken for laughter. “You’ve got a deal,” he answers.

Xander raises his nearly finished beer in the air. “To our women.”

Spike hoists his tumbler as well. “To our women.”

At the clash of their glasses they drink. Xander orders another beer and Spike another whisky.

And by the end of the evening, Spike is confirmed as Xander’s best man.

CHAPTER FOUR It is mid afternoon when Buffy enters the magic shop. She had some two hours before she has to be at the Bronze for her 4:00 shift and has decided that she should spend them in training. The day before she received a vague message from Giles, delivered by way of a snacking Dawn, about more Ger’acht demons on the prowl in Sunnydale. They were easy enough to kill, but their horns sometimes made it difficult to determine where they would strike next. Buffy thought some agility training might be in order.

Just inside the Magic Box, Buffy sees that hard economic times are not limited to the large chain stores at the mall. On a small round table, covered in an antique white lace cloth, is an arrangement of assorted items, all marked fifty percent off. A jar of mummified warthog’s feet, a vial of salamander eyes, some dried sage, and an imposing ebony statuette of a woman that could very well have been modeled after Pamela Anderson, sans the over abundance of bleached blond hair.

“Hey,” Buffy says, pointing to the figurine. “Why is the Maori fertility goddess on the discount table?”

Anya and Giles exchange a brief, pained look and Giles clears his throat.

“It was an accident,” Anya says in confession mode. “We were doing inventory last night. I was reaching for the book on Spells for the Uninitiated when my elbow smacked into the statue. It landed with a thud on the floor. I didn’t think I had really done any real damage, but then I found her nipple by the pre-fab potions. See?” Anya draws a finger over the clear halo of glue around the statuette’s left areole.

Buffy picks up the statuette to inspect the break a little further. “So you don’t think it works anymore?”

“The energy has been disrupted now,” Giles explains. “Corporal injury to a graven image always insures that the intentions of the deity have been compromised. In this instance, rather crudely and carelessly.”

Anya’s lips form a straight line and she balls her fists at her side. “OK, Giles. You promised you wouldn’t keep badgering me about it. And I told you if it’s not sold by the end of the season, you could take the money out of my paycheck.” She shrugs. “At any rate, it would make a nice tchochke for someone’s eclectic living room.”

“So how do you use it?” Buffy asks, tilting the god on its side.

“It works by will,” Giles tells her, wincing as Buffy turns the statuette in her hands. “A woman wishing to become pregnant touches the statuette on her abdomen. If it is truly her desire to have a child, then she will supposedly be in a family way very soon.”

Buffy is holding the statue by the neck as the base collides with the hem of her cropped tee shirt. “Any proof that it works?”

“Well, I suppose, the Maoris themselves,” Giles answers.

“Would you like me to wrap it for you?” Anya asks eagerly.

Buffy returns the statuette to the table. “No thanks. Even marked down from $150 to $75, it’s still a little out of my price range. Besides, every bit of my money is going towards Dawn’s big Christmas present.”

“She still really wants that computer, does she?” Giles asks.

“And I still really want to give it to her. Spike’s out seeing what he can do about getting a cheap one now.” She pauses to blow a stray piece of hair from her forehead. “Why am I picturing a guy named Guido, the back of a truck, and a bunch of used stereo equipment?”

At dusk, gratefully early at this time of year for vampires seeking gifts, Spike enters Helena’s House of Herbs. There are few patrons. As he crosses the threshold, he meets a confused teenager who seems to think that this place is the hub of all weed exchange in Sunnydale.

“Can I help you?” the slight blond behind the register asks as Spike’s seeking gaze meets with every root and leaf in the place.

“Yeah, I’m looking for…” How does he phrase this delicately? Or does he want to phrase it delicately? It might prove more effective if delivered in one breath, without hesitation. But he has already hesitated. “Spells. You have spells?”

“Spells? Not here,” the shop woman says. She is not still a girl. She is in her forties. Her crows feet shine in the track lighting above as she goes and dusts a row of small blue crystals. She seems awfully nervous.

“You have ingredients for spells?” Spike asks, giving into the thrill that he is making someone uncomfortable.

“No. Just herbs. Hence the name.” She does not look at her patron; just purses her lips and continues her dusting. “You should try the Magic Box.”

“Oh, the Magic Box? I wouldn’t go there even if my life depended on it. Have you seen how much they charge for taggis root? And the shop girl there? Ex-demon, she is.”

The woman’s unadorned pink lips open to a gasp. “Really?”

Spike nods his head swiftly. “Oh, yeah. It’s always the person you least expect.”

“That is so very true,” the woman says. Her eyes are trying to derive some meaning behind Spike’s visit. “What is it I can help you with?”

“I’m looking for a rejuvenation spell.”

“Oh, like an energy pick up! I have just the thing for you. A tumeric and ginko combo with a twist of ginger.”

Spike waves his hands in front of his face. “No. no. What I’m really looking for is something to…something to help with...” He takes a deep breath. “It’s a problem my girlfriend and I have in the bedroom.”

“You’re impotent? Have you tried Viagra?”

“What? NO! I can get it up quite nicely, thank you. It’s only when I fire my boys out of the cannon they are quite dead. As a matter of fact, I’m quite dead.”

The shopkeeper keeps her distance with a widening “o” to her expression “You’re a zombie?”

Spike frowns as he approaches her. “Bloody hell! Did I ask for your brain when I came in?”

“Well, no. But---

“I am a vampire. But no worries. I’m not of the biting variety.”

The shop woman is still guarding herself behind the counter and it appears as though she is looking for something heavy to hurl his way if he gets too close. For now, he keeps a polite distance.

“So you’re a…vampire,” the woman says, raking her hands down her sides. “And your girlfriend is-

“Human.”

“That’s sort of odd, isn’t it?” she says with a nervous laugh at the end.

“We’re a very odd couple. But we love each other and we want to be together forever. And I can love her and I can live with her and I can sleep in her bed every night and wake up next to her every morning. And we can go through our days together as any other couple would. And we can hold each other and make love and really be making love, but I can’t…I can’t…”

“Create life with her,” the woman finishes for him.

“Yes, that’s right,” he says, with a relieved sigh. “Look, I came here before and you helped me, even though you may not have known it. My girl was very ill with a fever and I found the ingredients for her cure right here in your store. She came back to me, and I knew that after she was well, I had to do everything I could to make sure that I would never lose her again. It occurred to me the other day that she might want a child one day and I would like to be able to father one with her. But you see, we don’t have a lot of time.”

“She’s not ill again, is she?”

“No, nothing like that. She, uh, she has this…this curse on her lineage. Most like her only live to be a certain age. Not much older than she is now. So if we want to have a child, it has to be soon.”

“I see,” the woman says. “Well, Mr….Mr. uh….”

“Spike. Just Spike,” he says.

“Spike. I don’t think I have anything that could really help with your situation. Beyond a few herbs that would enhance sexual performance. I don’t know of anything I might have that would actually restore precious seed to life. That would require something from the lab of Victor Frankenstein, I’m sure. At any rate, I don’t think you should be looking for a spell. It seems to me that what you want is to conceive a child with your girlfriend and with magic, you may get something that you hadn’t planned on or didn’t even really want. With magic, there are always consequences,” she says, moving out of her safe space behind the counter, still keeping a protective stance between herself and her visitor as she folds her arms snugly across her chest.

“Yes, I know that,” he says bitterly. “But…you see…I want to be with her always and I know about women and their biological clocks. She tells me she ripped the batteries out of hers long ago, but she’s young yet. Someday she may decide that she is missing out on that particular part of a woman’s experience. She would leave me, then, I’m sure, and I couldn’t stand that. If she ever does leave me, I hope she bloody well kills me before she does. Just stakes me in my sleep after I’ve filled her womb with more dead things.”

“Well, there are always sperm banks.”

“No. It has to be my child. With her. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else’s fishies swimmin’ upstream inside of her.”

“Of course.”

“Look, I knew this was sort of a long shot anyway. But I just thought that, you know, since you helped me before. Ah. No worries. Thank you for your time,” he says, turning on his heel to leave.

When he is just about to reach the door, he hears the woman calling for him again. She crosses the distance between them until there are standing just two paces a part, though her arms are still locked around her torso.

“You were once one of Gaia’s creatures,” the woman says, offering a slight smile. “Our Earth Mother never abandons those who have suckled from Her. All I can do for you is pray to Her and ask for Her assistance. What’s the girl’s name?”

“Buffy,” he answers.

“OK, then. I will make an offering to Gaia in the name of Spike and Buffy. If anything, some good fortune should follow. Maybe a turn in your finances or really, really green grass on your front lawn. We’ll see. Gaia knows when two of Her offspring have enough love in their hearts to bring another life into the world.”

Spike feels a wide grin beginning to form on his face. There is something inside of him that is stirring his long-dead heart. It is as though for the first time in his relationship with Buffy someone is giving him hope. Hope for the future. Hope for a little bit of eternity that will live on past their years together.

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