CHAPTER TWENTY
Spike is lying on the sofa, his new clicker in hand to the new TV Buffy bought for him when he hears the door opening. He springs up, hoping that it’s her. And it is.
Today Daniel had his five-week check-up. Spike would have gone with them, but the sun’s rays at 10:00 am are just too chancy and he makes himself a foreboding presence in pediatrician waiting rooms, cloaked in his Grim Reaper-like-UB-proof garb. He has spent his hours without her getting caught up with TV Land and coming to the sad conclusion that in the time he has been TV-free, the channel has removed Hogan’s Heroes from its daily line up.
Buffy’s cheeks are pink with the kiss of early fall. Sunny California can get quite nippy in late October. She had to walk to the doctors’ and back, carrying the baby and the paper bag of pig’s blood from the butcher upon her return. She sets both baby and blood on the kitchen table as Spike goes to investigate how her day went.
“He’s doing great,” she says, putting the blood in the refrigerator. “He’s gaining weight. He’s grown an inch. Dr. Henderson was very impressed.”
“Ah, I knew he had to be up to half a stone,” Spike says, jiggling the fat of his son’s thighs. He loves the way his son smiles at him now with a light of recognition in his eyes.
“But there’s news about our other problem child,” Buffy says wearily. She unfurls a folded letter “There’s going to be a parent-teacher meet and greet at the high school and I’m being summoned to attend. It’s kind of like the one you went to, uninvited, about four years ago?”
“Oh right,” he says. “Is Dawn in some sort of trouble at school?”
“I don’t know. But I guess I’ll find out there. What I’m asking you is, if I can talk Dawn into Daniel patrol, will you come with?”
“Sure. When is it?”
“November 11. It’s a Monday.”
“And what time?”
“Well after sunset. Just don’t bring your army this time,” she says, jabbing him in the stomach with a pointing finger.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just bring my own charming self.”
“Oh God!” Buffy says in a mad dash from the bathroom to her bedroom. “We’re going to be late and I can’t find my necklace!”
Spike sits on the sofa, his arms spread out behind him, and throws his head back in exasperation. “Did you check the top of the dresser?” he asks.
“First place I looked.”
“Well, I’m tapped.”
Buffy slides her strappy shoes on while she tears through the myriad of objects on her vanity. Pacifiers, bottles of holy water, bottles of perfume, baby bottles…no necklace.
“I think I saw it in the kitchen by the microwave,” Dawn offers from the doorway.
“Oh, of course!” Buffy says. She left it there when she was nuking a Stouffers that afternoon.
As she is hooking the clasp around her neck, she gives her final instructions to Dawn.
“There’s plenty of expressed milk in the fridge in case Daniel gets hungry. And remember that it’s breast milk, not regular milk, so you shouldn’t put it in the microwave.”
“I know, Buffy. I’ve fed him, like, a gazillion times,” Dawn says.
“All the numbers are on cork board by the phone. Daniel’s doctor, the school, poison control, the fire department.”
“Jeez, Buffy! You’re only going to be gone for a couple of hours! You think in that time, Daniel’s going to learn to crawl, gulp down some Drano and set the place on fire?”
“I’m just taking precautions, Dawn.” She looks at Daniel, sitting sweetly in his carrier, taking in the world through the twin blueberry squirts of his eyes. She has known for almost a week that she would be leaving the apartment without him for the first time, but now it’s really hitting her.
Dawn sees her sister’s quandary and puts a comforting arm around her shoulder. “We’ll be fine, Buffy. I’ve got everything under control.”
Time was that Buffy would be soliciting friends to look after Dawn while she ducked out for a night at the Bronze or to sneak in a quick patrol. It has been difficult for Buffy to relinquish the thought that Dawn is someone who needs to be protected all the time. But as she has to look up into her sister’s face, even in her heels, it is screamingly evident that her little sister is little only in the sense that she is younger. She is a maturing young woman now with a palpable self-assurance that Buffy only wishes she had when she was that age.
Buffy places a quick kiss on her sister’s cheek. “Thank you for looking after Daniel for us.”
“Not a problem, Buffy. Now get going because Vice Principal Westerman hates tardiness.”
“OK,” Buffy says. “Spike, we’re leaving,” she calls into the living room.
Spike springs to his feet. “Finally. I was half-asleep from waiting.”
As Spike helps Buffy into her coat, Dawn is now the one giving instructions.
“If you meet a guy named Mr. Morin, he’s an idiot, so don’t pay attention to a word he says.”
“All right,” Buffy says, making a mental note to put Mr. Morin on the top of her list of teachers to interrogate.
“And if you run across Mr. Jarman, remember that his diet consists mostly of marijuana and macrobiotics, so you really can’t trust anything he says either.”
“I think he was there when I was a student. He had a Grateful Dead sticker on one of the windows in his classroom.”
“Now he’s got a poster of a concert crowd with the words ‘Jerry’s Kids’ written at the top.”
Buffy gives one last lingering look at her son and takes a deep breath. “We won’t be gone long,” she says, reassuring herself as much as she is reminding Dawn.
“We’re good here, Buffy. Don’t worry,” Dawn says softly.
Buffy nods. “You call us if you need us.”
“I will.”
“I’ll check in with you when we get there,” Buffy says.
“I’ll be here.”
She had no idea it would be this hard. By the time she and Spike are winding the corner to the stairs, Buffy has tears in her eyes.
“What in the hell am I going to do when I have to leave him every night?” she asks, fanning her glistening eyes with her hands.
“I know, sweetheart. But I imagine that each time after this will get a little easier,” he says, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It has to,” she says, rooting through her purse from some Kleenex. “Otherwise I’ll have to become a stay-at-home Slayer.”
Not surprisingly, just minutes after Spike and Buffy’s departure, the phone rings.
“How are things going?” Buffy asks.
“Fine,” Dawn says. “Daniel and I were about to watch a little TV together.”
“Has he been crying?”
“Nope. He’s been perfectly quiet.”
“Hold on,” Buffy says before cupping a hand over the phone. “What?” Dawn hears Spike in the background. “No, honey. I don’t have any Altoids.” There is a grumble from Spike. “Your breath is fine, Spike. Now go in and start mingling. I’ll be there in a second.” Buffy sighs into the phone. “So you’re doing all right?”
“Yes, Buffy. Don’t worry! Everything’s fine!”
“OK. But please, please call if anything happens.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Well. I’d better go. Give Daniel an extra gentle squeeze for me.”
“Um, I think I’ll let you do that. I’ve learned that extra gentle squeezes lead to little extras in the diaper.”
“I’ll see you in about two hours, OK?”
“OK, Buffy.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Dawn has just put the receiver down when there is a knock at the door.
“Who can that be?” she muses aloud as she moves towards the door. Through the keyhole she discerns a fun house mirror version of her boyfriend. “Oh! Travis!” She quickly undoes the locks and throws the door open. “Hey, sweetie!”
Travis grins. “I was just in the area. Thought I’d drop by and say ‘Hi.’”
Yeah right, Dawn thinks. But at the same time she’s thinking, Yay! She hasn’t had any time alone with him since the day of the quake. Their meetings lately have consisted of afternoon crams at the library and open locker door chats before class. This is a pleasant surprise and she can’t help smiling as she draws him into the apartment with an eager hand.
“I wasn’t doing much of anything.” She scoops her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “So, I guess your parents are where Buffy and Spike are tonight.”
“Huh?” he bristles.
“D’uh!” she says, slapping him playfully on the arm. “At the dreaded parent-teacher night?”
“Oh, right. That. No, they’re not there.”
“Yeah. I guess they just got a note that said, ‘We’re having this thing, but you don’t have to come. Travis is perfect. We had to invent a level higher than 4.0 just for him.’”
He coughs out a laugh. “Dawn, you know I got a C in Spanish this term.”
“On a daily quiz! But then you got up and read that passage from Don Quixote that almost made Senora Feldman cry!”
From the sofa, Dawn hears the first bleats of dissatisfaction from Daniel, who has been as silent as a goldfish thus far.
“Hold on,” she says. The baby’s sleepy lips have accidentally dislodged the Nuk from his mouth and, being too young to search for it himself, he is relying on whoever else is around to find it. “Sh…Here you are, Daniel,” Dawn says, replacing the Nuk into his waiting lips. But no, this is one of those times when Daniel doesn’t want suckling; he wants cuddling. As Daniel has begun to recognize the people in his life, the people in his life have become familiar with what cries mean what. “Oh. OK, Daniel. Dawnie’s here.” She unstraps him from the carrier and hefts him onto her shoulder, mindful to drape a cloth diaper over her shoulder in case Buffy’s milk doesn’t agree with him. She casts an apologetic eye towards her boyfriend who doesn’t seem to know where to place his stare.
“I’m sorry, Travis. This is kind of like a forced meeting, isn’t it?” she asks, remembering his post-quake confession about baby Michael and the emotion in his voice as he talked about him.
“No. No, I’ve w-wanted to meet D-Daniel,” Travis stammers, moving towards them. He extends an index finger for the newborn greeting of five tiny digits around his nearly fully grown one. “Hello, Daniel.” He smiles into the not-quite-there expression of the baby. “So you’re calling him Daniel?”
“Just Daniel for now,” she says. “We’re avoiding Danny because…well, it’s not who he is so far.” She doesn’t disclose that Danny is too close to Danny Boy and therefore is too reminiscent of the Gaelic song which harks back to someone both mother and father don’t want to be reminded of. “And Dan is a grown up name. Right now he’s Daniel or The Baby.”
Travis nods. Or Savior, he thinks, conscious of the bottle of chloroform contained in the inside pocket of his letterman’s jacket.
Buffy walks into the night shadowed commons room of the new Sunnydale High School where many suited and long-lengthed floral gown forty-something parents are meeting their children’s teachers. She knows automatically that she is overdressed for the occasion in her top-of-the-knee-skimming black dress with shoulder-baring spaghetti straps.
Spike stands alone. Momentarily, Buffy wonders if Spike, as the poor poet William, was once the kind of geeky wallflower awaiting a girl to ask him to dance. But as she approaches him, she wonders how that could be. She coaxed him into wearing his deep blue silk button down and gray flannel pants tonight. In this carnation he looks so handsome that covetously she thinks, He’s mine.
“There you are,” he says. He strips the stickyback from a nametag and pastes it on her dress. Miss Buffy Summers, he has written in his careful left-handed script.
She reads the nametag on Spike’s chest and cocks an eyebrow. “Hello your name is William Hogan?”
“It is tonight,” he says. “I like the sound of it. Sort of old Hollywood.”
“Uh huh,” Buffy says, acknowledging her boyfriend’s non-sexual crush on Colonel Hogan and all his heroes. “And has Mr. Hogan met anyone here yet?”
“Mr. Hogan was waiting for Miss Summers to show him around,” he says, clasping his fingers around hers.
“We’ll circulate, then.”
Automatically, a curly-haired woman with sun-influenced lines of her face disengages herself from the couple she was speaking with and walks over to Buffy and Spike.
“Miss Summers?” the woman asks.
“Yes?” Buffy turns.
“Miss Summers. We met briefly at the start of Dawn’s freshman year. You were, understandably, reoccupied,” the woman says. “I’m Vice Principal Westerman.”
Buffy can excuse herself from not remembering this woman. When Dawn was about to start high school Buffy was working both jobs and slacking off on her parenting duties. She has a vague memory of going to the school on a hot day and paying the book fees with a money order as she hoped her mother’s insurance money would stretch a little further.
“Oh! Vice Principal Westerman!” Buffy says. “Nice to see you again.”
“And you are?” Vice Principal Westerman asks, nodding towards Spike.
“Well, this is…” Buffy regards her lover. She smiles and says, “This is my fiancé, William.”
Spike hears the appellation with a joy in his would-be soul, the words inspiring a lift in his step as he reaches to shake hands with Mrs. Westerman. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“And you as well. Now,” Mrs. Westerman says with a vexing look, “You’re not the Spike Dawn has talked about in my office, are you?”
“Um,” Spike says, wondering about just what Dawn has said about him. “I don’t know.”
Mrs. Westerman smiles. “Don’t be so scared. What she’s said is all good. But she didn’t tell me that the two of you were engaged.”
“We just announced it,” Buffy says, grinning up at her betrothed.
“Congratulations!”
“Thank you,” the pair mumbles with a sudden bashfulness.
“Now, from what I understand, Mr. Hogan, you have been acting as a guardian for Dawn since her mother’s death?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Spike says guardedly.
“Dawn in such a bright student. But I’ve been concerned about certain behaviors she has been exhibiting in class. Some teachers have told me that she’s been lethargic to the point of falling asleep during lectures. But through my talks with Dawn, I also know that you have a newborn in the household.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Buffy apologizes. “Sp---William and I do have a baby. He’s just six weeks old.”
“So I imagine she has been kept awake by the new arrival?”
“She’s in charge of third shift,” Spike explains to Vice Principal Westerman. “Buffy takes 9:00-1:00, I take 1:00 to 5:00 and then Dawn wakes up at 5:00 and takes over until she goes to school, unless Daniel sleeps through the night, which he’s been getting better and better at,” Spike says, looking lovingly at Buffy. “I suppose everyone needs a chance at being good.”
“That is true,” vice principal Westerman echoes Buffy’s thoughts. “I was just concerned that there might be something else in Dawn’s life influencing her sudden dip in productivity.”
“She has a boyfriend. They go out. But she’s home by eleven every night. She has a strict curfew. William and I don’t let her deviate from that. Especially on school nights,” Buffy says resolutely.
“She doesn’t party?” Mrs. Westerman asks.
“Not on our watch,” Buffy says.
“Some parents, even those who think they know their children well, really don’t know. And for a sister, taking over parenting duties, I imagine it’s been very difficult for her to accept you as an authoritative figure in her life.”
“Oh no. It’s not like that at all. She’s always looked up to me, even before Mom died.” Buffy still wonders why when she mentions her mother died it’s as though she is saying it for the first time. “Dawn tells us everything. She’s very honest,” Buffy says.
“She talks to me quite a bit after school,” Spike says. “We have our routine when she gets home. I always have a nice, healthy snack prepared for her. Some veggies and juice. Maybe a bit of protein, if I think there is some lacking from her diet. Then we talk. Just this afternoon the two of us were watching a public affairs program on TV and afterwards the two of us had a spirited discussion about personal freedoms in this democratic society of ours.” Spike leaves out the fact that the public affairs show they were watching was actually Judge Judy and the high protein healthy snack they shared consisted of Hershey Special Dark miniatures dipped in peanut butter.
A short, slightly balding man sidles up to Vice Principal Westerman. Automatically, Buffy is thinking not so warm thoughts of Principal Snyder. But this man is not so the sniveling Ferengi of a man he was. His teeth are straight and his eyes do not bead.
“The parents of Jill Carlesco are here,” he whispers.
“Oh.” Mrs. Westerman’s face loses all expression. “Listen, I have to take this one. I’m glad that we talked. And if it’s any comfort to you, I raised three sons of my own. Before you know it, your baby will be grown. Then you’ll have a teen-ager to deal with all over again,” she says, excusing herself with a gentle squeeze of Buffy’s hand. “Take care.”
Buffy’s insides are momentarily convulsing from the thought of another teenager to raise when she glances at Spike. His mouth is slack, open to one side. He looks as though he has been struck in the back of the head by a two by four.
“What?” she asks.
“So we’re telling people now?” he asks.
“Telling people what?” she asks coyly.
He clinches his jaw. “You said I was your fiancé.”
“Well, you are,” she says, linking her arm with his. “I just wanted to see how it sounded.”
“And how did it sound?” he asks, nuzzling his nose against hers.
“It sounded perfect,” she smiles.
They have not spoken fully about what transpired that night. Spike felt---and is still feeling---a great deal of grief, filling himself with her blood and marking her just millimeters above where Angel left his brand. She hid under turtleneck sweaters for a week and treated the wound with plenty of Neosporin. Tonight is the first time she has attempted to wear something neck-baring. The bite is pink now, just barely visible. And what he asked her that night. He often thinks that his proposal was taken as drunk talk in a bar near closing time. It wasn’t how he had dreamed of his proposal. His Willow-induced spell had produced a better, more romantic asking of her hand. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him and how pointless his unlife would be without her. But what he said sufficed. She did say yes. He has often wondered if she meant yes, though.
They have not informed everyone about their engagement. A giddy, blood-engorged Spike rattled off the news to Dawn over breakfast the next morning when Buffy and Daniel were still sleeping and she leaped into his arms, peppering his face with kisses. Buffy is as excited as any girl about her impending nuptials and she hopes that Spike is not taking her reticence about it as indifference. She imagines that if they did not live together and see each other every day that she might feel a little differently. For one thing, she has Dawn to act out some of her enthusiasm for her. Since she was told about the engagement Dawn has been hauling home thick bridal magazines and studying them with a connoisseur’s eye. She has already chosen the bridesmaids gowns. Swiss blue, floor-length, off the shoulder, something that the attendants really could wear again without looking like they are about to take the stage in a production of the Nutcracker. She has picked out the bouquets: porcelana spray roses, light blue delphinium, pink astilbe, nerine lilies and lavender freesia. She has all but booked the caterer and chosen a honeymoon site for them.
“We have to do something about your finger, though,” Spike says.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” she asks, still a little subconscious about physical flaws in the wake of Spike’s passionate love bite.
“It doesn’t have a ring on it.”
“Oh, yeah,” she blushes. “The ring. You should probably choose something that won’t interfere with the slaying. A band ring. Maybe something with a little swirl of diamonds imbedded in it. Like the stars in a Van Gogh painting.”
“Uh huh?” he says, his spirits buoyed.
“Just a little something. The karat weight isn’t that much. Just 1/2. But it’s set in platinum.”
“And just where might I find this ring?” he asks.
“At Conrad’s on---” She hasn’t wanted to discuss rings because an engagement ring should cost two months’ salary and he doesn’t have that. “Anything you buy for me will be nice. I don’t need a ring to tell the world I’m marrying the love of my life,” she says, her eyes shining.
“Darling, when has getting something for someone I love been an issue for me? You know I always find a way somehow. I’ll get you something nice,” he promises with a kiss as he rubs his knuckles against the back of her head. “So, I suppose the next step after securing a ring is setting a date.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Buffy says. “I definitely think that we should wait until Daniel is a little less booby-centric. I mean, right now he’s smacking his lips when he wants me.”
“Oh, so is that the secret?” Spike asks, smacking his own lips as he draws her close to him.
“Honey, do you think we should call Dawn again?” she asks. “This is her first time alone with the baby.”
“Buffy,” he says, exasperated. “You just finished telling that Westerman chit that we trusted Dawn. Let’s show the Little Bit that we do trust her. I’m sure she’s doing a great job with Daniel.”
“I think I’ve got him settled down,” Dawn says as she walks into the living room. “He was awake all last night. I think he’s exhausted. Hopefully.” She plops down next to Travis. “How are you?”
I’m terrified, he wants to say. He clears his throat as Dawn snuggles against him on the sofa. “I’m OK.”
“Mmmm,” Dawn says, cuddling up to him. “You have such a nice chest. But your heart is, like, running a race.” She raises her head to meet his. “What’s wrong?”
“Just happy to see you,” he says. “And be near you.”
“Aw, honey!” she says, diving towards his mouth for a kiss. She whispers against his lips. “I love you.”
“And I love you too,” Travis says. He looks into her trusting, affection-dappled face and has to turn away, halting his tears by closing his eyes. “I love you so much.”
“Travis,” she cajoles, fastening both hands on either side of his face. “What’s wrong?”
So much. Everything. I wish you didn’t love Daniel so. I wish I didn’t love you so, he thinks.
Now he is thinking about the church. He has seen it himself. There is a black hole where there was once a sanctuary. There is a hissing of fire replacing songs of praise.
We’re all going to hell, he reminds himself. We’re all going to hell.
“Dawn, we’ve been together for over a year. And I care about you more than anyone in the world,” Travis says.
“I care about you too, Travis,” Dawn says warily, wondering where this is going. He is either going to break up with her or confirm their commitment. Either way, she’s scared to death.
Why did we have to come back here? Why did my mother make me seek out the Slayer? And why did I have to fall in love with Dawn? “I was thinking the other night that you and I have been together for over a year and I haven’t given you anything to mark our anniversary.”
A prezzy! He has a prezzy for me! Dawn’s heart instantly begins to thunder. “OK,” she says giddily.
“So I did something about that today,” he says, sweat springing out over his brow.
Dawn observes the slim sliver of a velvet box produced from Travis’ pocket. “Oh my God!” she squeals.
“Let me put it on you.” He draws in a breath. “Turn your head. And close your eyes.”
Dawn does as instructed, awaiting the cool of his present around her neck. She was thinking envious thoughts just this night when Buffy was searching for the necklace Spike had given her. The omni-present watch has been a temporal reminder of Spike’s love for her sister. Dawn has often dreamed that a boyfriend of hers would place something just as meaningful around her neck. Given the wealth of Travis’ family and the extent of his largesse when he and the gang go to the coffee shop, she is expecting something big. Something measured in karats. Something that a jeweler would drop his loop about.
Something else other than what happens.
A cloth is clapped against her mouth, cupped by a fierce hand. She screams against it, hearing her own muffled, useless words. She tries to breathe. There is no breath in her lungs. There is only the cloth before her nose and the boy behind her. Her nails dig, bite into the flesh of his forearms. No breath. She draws in nothing. Her nails are growing soft. They are liquid against skin. There is a brief hum and then nothing but blackness.
Travis catches her, slack limbs falling all at once in his arms. Her face is perfectly still, her eyes closed. The cloth is still on her and he dispenses of it as though ridding himself of the used bandages from an oozing wound.
She is near the sofa, so he places here there, positioning her against a throw pillow. He puts her hand against her chin. She looks like she has fallen asleep watching TV. That’s just the effect he was hoping for.
He walks into the bedroom, his heartbeat never more evident. There is only his heartbeat and the remembering to breathe. He has to tell himself to breathe or he will forget. His heart throbs and his breath, when it comes, is slow and labored. He fears he will pass out.
Before him is the bed where the Slayer and the vampire sleep. He wasn’t expecting just a bed. He was thinking that he might find a coffin or a bar where the vampire might hang by his feet when he sleeps. This is new knowledge to him. The Slayer and the vampire sleep in a bed together. Under the lamp of one bedside table is a paperback copy of What to Expect in the First Year with a miniature Krackle wrapper marking a place 1/3 the way. There is a glass with a frosted lip-gloss kiss. On the other bedside table, beside where the vampire lays his head, is a display of pictures, one of Buffy, one of Dawn, one of the three of them with the baby.
Then there is the baby.
His purpose here, lying sweetly, in the swaddling clothes of a terrycloth sleeper. The baby is sleeping. When Travis gathers him up, Daniel kicks slightly. Travis didn’t anticipate the humanness of the baby. When he picked him up, he expected to feel a pointy tail stabbing his arm or a rising howl from the hell the child was supposed to have been born from. Instead, the child randomly tests his muscles and molds his form against Travis’ chest, nestling his head trustingly against his kidnapper’s shoulder.
The trip back to the carrier is short. Travis puts him in, straps him down. The baby sleeps. But what about Dawn? Is she sleeping? Or is she…?
Did he smother her to death? He checks the vein on her neck. Still pulsating.
“Forgive me,” he whispers as he kisses her on her forehead.
Travis hooks his arm under the arch of the carrier. He looks down at the baby, his mind hammered by thoughts of the ruined church and the innocent child. He sucks back a sob.
And he takes the baby away.
“I think that went well,” Buffy says, approaching the door of their apartment.
“It was all right,” Spike says.
“Oh, come on. You hated every minute of it,” Buffy says, relaxing against the door.
“There were only a few minutes I truly hated and they were the ones without you,” he says, his lips fixed for a kiss.
She is perfectly content to make out in the doorframe, but as she returns his kiss, a neighbor walks by in a housecoat, mottled skin pouring over into her bedroom slippers.
“Hi, Mrs. Garcia!” Buffy says. “We’re engaged!”
The woman mutters something under her breath in Spanish that Buffy can only interpret as, “It’s about time.”
“We’d better go in,” Buffy suggests.
“Yeah, we should,” Spike answers, kissing her chin, her cheek, her forehead.
“Stop it,” she urges half-heartedly.
“Hmmmm…” is his return as he finds a fitting kissing spot on her collarbone.
Surreptitiously she slips her key into the deadbolt and opens the door.
Automatically, they are greeted by the darkness of the apartment. The TV is still on, pulsating colored light into the blackness.
“I can’t believe that we’re this lucky. Daniel’s asleep?” Buffy whispers incredulously.
“Dawn too,” Spike says, pointing to the teenager’s prone form on the sofa.
“Wow,” Buffy remarks as she heads for the bedroom.
Spike sweeps a hand against Dawn’s stilled features. She is so soundly asleep that she doesn’t notice his presence.
There is a scream. One that makes Spike think his spine is being split in half by a razor driven up his back
Buffy rushes towards him, brandishing a yellow blanket. Daniel’s blanket.
“Daniel’s gone!” Buffy howls. “Daniel’s gone!”
Buffy tears at the air like a sightless and deaf wild child only to be caught up in the safety of Spike’s arms. He cannot assure her. He cannot even begin to comfort her.
He can only cry with her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Take it down, Willow. Hurry!” Spike demands from outside the invisible barrier than prevents him from entering the Singleton’s home without an invitation.
Willow is beyond responding now, all black eyes and incantations. With three final oaths, the barrier is down and Spike hurls himself into the cavernous hulk of the Singleton’s pristine entryway and into the arms of the two girls waiting for him on the other side.
Once again he is forced to decide which one is more pitiful as he feels their twin embrace. His girl Buffy, robbed and bereft; his girl Dawn humiliated and betrayed. Buffy is still holding Daniel’s yellow blanket; Dawn is still swaying towards unconsciousness from the chloroform. Spike is embracing two reasons to reclaim the murderous instinct in him. Tonight, blood will be shed. Travis, and whoever else is responsible for this, will die.
“There’s no one here,” Xander reports, hopping from the third stair to the floor of the entryway. “I checked all the bedrooms, all the bathrooms. Even the closets.”
“And there’s no one in the basement,” Giles says, emerging from the crawl space under the stairs without so much as a cobweb on him.
“I didn’t think there would be anyone here,” Spike says. “But what is here is the reason why Daniel was taken and where he is now.”
“So what’s the plan?” Xander asks.
“The plan is to find the son of a bitch who stole Daniel from us,” Spike says coolly. “And for that, we need each and every one of you. Giles, I see you’ve brought a good chunk of your library and that’s good. What you haven’t put to memory, you memorize tonight. You look up anything, anything that might tell us why…” He lets Giles fill in the ellipses. The mere mention of the word sacrifice, he fears, will be too much for Buffy, who appears to be teetering on the edge of catatonia. “Willow, there’s a laptop up in Travis’ room. You hack away at it, take a bloody sledgehammer to it if you think that would work. Look in all the files, all his internet histories. Tara, I need for you to do some sort of locating spell, if you have the materials for it. Xander, Anya, you’re on patrol. You take the Northside. Buffy and I will take the Southside.”
Spike regards the gathering in front of him, a veritable cross section of the populace who would never, ever see the inside of these Waverly-covered walls. The hour after Dawn drowsily loosed the name of the kidnapper from her lips was spent traipsing through the halls of Sunnydale Heights, knocking on door after door. Our baby is missing. Did you see anyone? Did you hear anything? No, was the constant refrain they heard from the strangers living under their roof. Then they made the calls to their friends. Our baby is missing. No, was the response then as well, but also, what can we do to help? They didn’t call 911. These people gathered here are their 911.
He takes a breath as he struggles to keep the tears in check. “I know there are those among you who are not overjoyed that the Slayer and I are together. But I ask you, I beg you to put aside any prejudices you may have and realize that Daniel needs to be with the people who love him and not with strangers who might wish to harm him.” He turns to Buffy now, finding her expression vacant, but something there is still locked into that warrior strength that nothing on earth could subdue. “We’re going to find him, at all costs.” He walks his fingers up the ridge of Buffy’s jawline, at length stroking her cheek as he promises her, “We’re going to find him.”
As the group disperses, Tara takes Buffy gently by the arm. “Um, if I’m going to do a locating spell, something that belongs to Daniel, something that was close to him, would help. Could I use the blanket? Just f-for a while?”
Buffy’s eyes respond a clear no. Her arms grip the blanket tighter.
“Give us a second, Tara,” Spike says. He takes Buffy by the shoulders and positions her right in front of him so that she can only see him, though her eyes remain somewhere else. “Darling, Tara wants to help us. She needs a bit of Daniel to do that. Won’t you give her the blanket, just for now? Just until she can find Daniel for us. And she will give the blanket right back. Won’t you, Tara?”
“Of course,” Tara is quick to respond.
Buffy regards the yellow blanket and smoothes her hands down the soft fragrant surface of the flannel. Breathing the scent once again, she slowly hands it over to Tara.
“You won’t let anything happen to him…it, will you?” Buffy says.
“Never,” Tara says, her eyes spilling over with tears. “Never. And I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry,” Buffy says. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Spike dismisses Tara with a wave of his hand. “Why are you sorry, sweetheart?” he asks as he draws Buffy close to him.
She levels her stare at the floor, her eyes nearly closing. “Because Daniel has to be my child,” is all she says.
Xander is the next to clarify his mission for the night. He clears his throat, making his presence known.
“Spike, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Travis before. I could use a little help description-wise.”
“Tall, mop-headed, bloody stupid, has my kid,” Spike says angrily. “That should give you something to work from. You’ve a cell phone, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Anya too.”
“Good. We should stay in touch as much as possible on patrol. If I could borrow either yours or Anya’s.”
“Sure. Anything you need.”
Spike runs his fingers through the fading highlighted strands of Buffy’s hair and kisses her on the forehead. He feels her arms tighten around him, almost of their own volition, like the need in her is acting without her body’s permission. “And if you do find that minger, you bring him to me. Straight away.”
“No!” Dawn says, breathing heat like an angered bull, pitted against a matador who has now fled the arena leaving only the memory of the red cape. “When you find Travis, bring him to me. I’m going to kill him.”
A coolness descends as everyone, collectively, realizes she means what she’s saying and if she goes through with it, they will all have to look the other way.
A chilly wind gently unsettles a pile of leaves, sending them skittering across the naked surface of the cement sidewalk. Travis feels the breeze on his bare calves and thinks the child in his arms may be cold as well. He knows he should have brought the yellow blanket with him, but there just didn’t seem to be enough time to put everything together. Every second he was there, he felt that Buffy and Spike were right behind the door, about to pop in unannounced. It was their right to, being their apartment. He was the trespasser. Dying young is not on his list of things to do and he is certain that if they had caught him, he would not be sitting on this park bench, under the spread of an oak’s aged limbs, rocking their baby slowly, sending soothing “Sh’s” into the quiet of the night.
“It’s going to be all right. Hush, Daniel,” he says, though the baby isn’t crying. The baby seems to be adjusting just fine to the stranger who has taken him from his home to come and sit under the stars as fate awaits them both in a church just one block away. “Don’t cry, Daniel. Please don’t cry. It’ll be all right.” He puts the baby’s head to rest on his shoulder as the darkness in front of him begins to shimmer with prisms of light and tears soak his eyes. “It’s going to be all right. Don’t worry. We’re all going to be OK.”
Inside St. Catherine’s Chapel, the sanctuary burns.
Where pews once stood on either side of the aisle, there is now a pit of fire, its flames licking within a tongue’s distance of the altar where Reverend Estey stands in rapture, his eyes closed, his arms out-stretched, his flowing ecclesiastical gowns coming close to being ripped away from his body by the flames, or at least singed. Along the perimeter of the pit where there is still flooring, the congregation stands, holding hands, entranced by the intense fire before them as they chant over and over, “The child will come. The child will come. The child will come.”
Phyllis Wright drops her chin to her chest and begins to sob. Samantha Singleton, who is standing beside her, wrests her thoughts from the incantations and grips the woman’s hand tight enough to break her knuckles.
“You fool! Keep chanting!” Samantha Singleton orders.
“I know. But it’s so horrible. All this. I feel like I’m going to hell anyway if we go through with this,” the woman manages to choke out.
“You are going to hell, you witch. And speaking of which, I hope you made that cloaking spell nice and tight on the child. The Slayer has very powerful witches on her side. More powerful than you, Phyllis. Or should I call you Helena?”
“I’m not a witch,” Phyllis Wright mutters.
“What?” Mrs. Singleton wrenches the delicate bones in Phyllis Wright’s hand until they are nearly snapping in her grasp.
“I’m not a witch!” she reiterates as she crumples to her knees from the pain of Samantha Singleton’s lethal handshake. “I just have a few things in my store for spells. That’s all.”
“So you’re not a witch?” Samantha asks.
“No, I never was!” Phyllis Wright says in agony. “I just did some experimenting in college like everyone.”
“But you did do the cloaking spell, didn’t you?”
“Well…” Phyllis Wright answers in a whisper, too low to be heard above the roar of the fire.
“Didn’t you?”
“I did! But I don’t know if it worked.”
Samantha Singleton administers one last squeeze to Phyllis’ hand, this time helping her to her feet. “You better hope it did. Or else, there will be hell to pay. And you, my friend, will be the one holding the tab.”
Xander and Anya are stopped at a traffic light on Oak Street. Three teenagers, two female, the other male, make their way through the crosswalk. They cannot hear their laughter from inside the car, but they can see it on their faces.
“Wow, look at that,” Xander says.
“Xander, I would appreciate it if you would stop looking at lean, lithe adolescent bodies and saying, ‘Wow,’” Anya says.
“What? No. I was just thinking, it’s a Monday night. They’re happy. They’re going somewhere. Probably to the Bronze. Or to the movies. You know where I would be going on a Monday night when I was in high school? To the library at school, to either learn about a new apocalypse or to plan on fighting one.”
“So you’re saying that you were robbed of all the good times associated with youth because of your friendship with Buffy?”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Which words?”
“Those words saying I was robbed of good times because of my friendship with Buffy.”
“I didn’t say that. You did.”
“Uh, no. You were the one suggesting that my youth was misspent because I spent too much time with Buffy.”
“No, I didn’t say that, either.”
The light turns green and Xander proceeds through the intersection. In this residential part of Sunnydale, people are in their homes, watching television, preparing for bedtime. Some houses are displaying scarecrows and pumpkins out on their lawns to celebrate the coming harvest of Thanksgiving. These people have actual lives in which they wake up, go to work, come home, have dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Xander wakes up, goes to work, comes home, has dinner, goes to a Scooby meeting, and goes to bed very late if he is patrolling. He kills vampires with a well-placed stake and watches them dissolve into dust. He comes home and wakes to his alarm and goes back to work, often late. His supervisor has suspected that he is moonlighting. He is. He slays vampires and demolishes demons by the light of the moon.
“I don’t know what I would do,” Xander says, “if someone took my baby…”
“I know what I would do,” Anya says. “I would infest the kidnapper with some boils. Maybe some visible tumors, since they are not as drainable as boils. And then I would call D’Hoffryn and let him take over. Because I think in a situation like that, I would go straight to the top for the big finish.”
They are heading for another intersection. To their right is the looming presence of St. Catherine’s Chapel. The parking lot is full. And the stained glass windows glow from within.
“Big going’s on at the church tonight,” Xander says. “Guess they’re so filled with the Holy Spirit on Sunday it spills over into Monday.”
“We should pull over,” Anya says.
“Here? There’s probably nothing but a whole lot of potato salad and KFC chicken going on in the fellowship hall.”
“Is it normal for a congregation to have a barbeque inside a church?”
“No. Not really.”
“Then why did I just see flames shoot out of one of the lower windows?”
Xander quickly swerves into the church parking lot.
A quick peek through the open slat of a stained glass window tells them that they haven’t stopped for nothing.
“We’d better call Buffy,” Xander says, his white-washed faced aglow in the light of the flames.
Tick tick tick.
That’s all Spike hears as he and Buffy roam the wooded fringes of Sunnydale’s city limits. It is so quiet tonight he can hear the throbbing of his ladylove’s heart and the ticking of the timepiece he fashioned into a necklace for her.
Tick, tick, tick.
He can hear the watch wherever it is. Buffy often places the watch on her bedside table right before she goes to sleep. Sometimes she wears it to bed. Sometimes she leaves it where she can’t lay her hands on it. Dawn had to help her find it before they left for the Parent-Teacher night at the high school. He knew where it was. He wanted her to find it. Though she may mislay it on occasion, it is never off her throat for long. During lovemaking, it swings like a pendulum before his eyes, turning the physical act of love into a nearly hypnotic experience for him. While Angel gave her a cross, her second vampire lover gifted her with something that would protect her from nothing, except tardiness. But it has always been for him more than a mere timepiece. It is not just his last material link to the days of poor poet William, nor is it just his legacy to pass onto his progeny. The watch is his heart, ticking for her.
Tick, tick, tick.
He swats a knobby stick at the underbrush in front of him, allowing the two of them to pass without getting tangled up in roots and leaves. “There’s a clearing up ahead. Just some stumps from the logger’s clear-cutting. We should try there.”
“Daniel had hiccups today,” Buffy says suddenly.
He is startled by the sound of her voice. He hasn’t heard her speak since she screamed the words, Daniel’s gone…Daniel’s gone…
“What’s that, Pet?” he asks.
Her chin trembles. Since she peered into the vestige where her child has been kept safe and sound, after her mind erupted and her heart bled from violent pulses that still have not stopped, everything around her has arranged itself into a single chord, a D-Minor strike of a piano plucked continuously by a phantom hand. The sound of her own voice comes as a surprising interlude in the piece. “He had hiccups,” she says again.
“Daniel hiccups a lot,” Spike says.
“He hiccupped and I remembered. I remembered what it was like to have him inside of me. The way his body was moving. And I couldn’t do anything about it. He kept hiccupping for about ten minutes and then he spit up and I wiped his mouth and he fell asleep. And I kissed him and I thought that was the greatest thing. Falling asleep in my arms. And I went to sleep too. I don’t know how long we slept, but it felt like forever.”
About two hours, he recalls. He knows this because he spent the entire time catching the phone on the first ring and then shushing Dawn when she bounded in from school. He is trying to remember the look of peace on her face because now all he sees is the empty cradle.
“I don’t remember a thing about when I was born,” Buffy continues in a desolate voice. “I don’t even remember recognizing Mom as Mom and Dad as Dad. I just trusted that these people were my parents because they took care of me. And Dawn. I have such vivid memories of her being a baby. I know they’re not true, but I remember her being small, like Daniel, and taking her into my arms.” Buffy shakes her head. “But Daniel. I felt him grow inside of me. I saw him come from me.” She wants to clutch at something, something that is his. But she doesn’t have his blanket anymore. “Spike, I did this.”
“Buffy don’t---
“No, I mean it. Think about it. Dawn was given to me so that I could protect her from Glory. Daniel was given to me for---
“We don’t know why Daniel was taken,” Spike says
“Oh, come on, Spike. I wasn’t just plucked from the Slayer patch yesterday. I’ve been at this a long, long time. You and I both know why Daniel was taken. That’s why we’re out here, searching in the woods. You’ve been avoiding the word sacrifice all night, but I know. My life is all about sacrifice. The baby of a vampire and a Slayer is just ripe for sacrifice. And I wasn’t there to protect him.”
No, he can’t shield the truth from her. She knows the truth too well, having looked into the empty cradle.
She shakes her head. “We should have never brought a child into the world, not into my world.”
“Buffy, please don’t talk like that.”
“I mean it, Spike. We’re just as guilty as Travis for what’s happened to Daniel.”
“Now, look!” he says in a near growl, seizing her by the shoulders. “We are not in the wrong here, Buffy. Daniel wasn’t born out of anything except for our love for each other. You know that.”
She is still not hearing him. “Spike, if something has happened to him, if he is…gone, I’ll---
“Buffy!”
“---die,” she finishes quietly.
For a split second in time, he is moved by the sight of a fading spark in her green and gold eyes. He has seen this look of terror before, followed by the issuance of acceptance. He saw it in the adolescent Chinese Slayer’s eye right before she begged him to tell her mother she was sorry. He saw it in the flashes between light and dark in the subway car in New York, when he twisted the neck of his second Slayer. Five years ago, this barely perceptible change in expression would have sent him howling with victory. But today he is almost too frightened to move or speak. This is Buffy’s breaking point. This is the thing that will kill her.
She drops her head, burying her face in her hands, the sound of her muffled sobs obscuring all other noises.
The cruelty of life’s irony is laid bare in front on him in the shaking form of his one true love. For the year leading up to the consummation of his affection for her, he thought that his unrequited passion was the punishment for the years he ran, unscathed and unpunished, from all his past misdeeds. But now he knows this; the reciprocation can be just as harsh. Just looking at her brings up a host of the unholy terrors he committed before she touched him and stilled the violence in his demon and made a template of her own soul in his vacuous tomb of a body. He doesn’t have to wonder what kind of person would steal a child from its home and spirit him away in the night. He once was such a being. In his time he has killed infants, just for the sheer thrill of hearing their mothers’ beg and plead, leaving them to live with the sounds of their children’s own death rattles lingering on in memory. Tonight a mother went to her baby’s cradle and found nothing but a yellow blanket. He caught her as her grief overpowered her; he held her as realization overcame her. And he felt the pummeling blows of a million castigations delivered in one fell swoop.
Tick, tick, tick.
But he also knows this; as he was eventually caught for his sins, so will this evil creature who has their son in his clutches. He just wants for her to know that too.
Spike pulls her to him now, murmuring softly into her hair, easing kisses onto her forehead. “Oh, Buffy…don’t fade out on me now, sweetheart. Daniel needs us too much. He needs us to be strong, so that we can find him. And when this mess is all over, then we can fall apart. But not now. Our child’s life is at stake.”
Buffy breaks from him long enough to stare up into his calm, reasoning visage. “I know, but---
“Sh…” he says, putting a finger to her lips. “No protests, love. We will get our son back.”
He is momentarily distracted by a shrill ringing from the inside pocket of his duster. It takes him a while to remember that he has Anya’s cell phone. “See? I’ll bet that’s shop girl and monkey boy now, telling us they’ve found him.”
He answers the phone with this anticipation, only to hear Xander panting breathlessly on the other end.
“Spike, you’ve got to get back to the Singleton’s house. Right now!”
“You’ve found him? He’s there?” Spike asks hopefully.
“No. But I think we know where he’s headed.”
Relying on all the preternatural speed the two of them can muster, Buffy and Spike arrive back at the Singleton’s house less than five minutes after Xander’s phone call.
They find him, along with Anya and the others, crowded in living room.
“What did you find?” is Spike’s immediate question.
“All I can say is the congregation of St. Catherine’s Chapel has opened a big can of hell stew.”
“They’ve what?” Spike asks.
Dawn comes forward now. “On the day of Anya’s wedding, there was a rumbling in the basement. I felt it. I was going to tell Buffy about it, but the wedding was about to start. Then Buffy went into labor and I must have forgotten about it,” Dawn says. “On the day of the quake, Travis’ parents went straight to the church. It was damaged pretty bad.”
“That’s where the new Hellmouth is,” Buffy deducts.
“Not a Hellmouth,” Giles says. “From Xander and Anya’s description, it sounds more like an open door, not to just a hell dimension, but to the sort of hell written about in the Bible.”
“Oh God, Daniel,” Buffy says in a near swoon.
“Did you see---?” Spike begins.
Xander shakes his head. “We didn’t see Daniel anywhere.”
Spike turns his probing gaze to Tara.
“The locating spell went awry,” Tara explains. Willow and I both tried. If what we w-were tracking was Daniel, Tr-travis is moving around a lot, but never in a straight line. It’s like he doesn’t have a destination.”
“But he will,” Spike says darkly. “And we better get to it before he does.”
“Don’t bother,” a voice says from the doorway. “I’m not going anywhere.”
All eyes turn. It is as though, collectively, they are all seeing a ghost and each viewer is putting his mind through a reality check before the figure can be fully perceived. But what they are seeing is real.
Travis Singleton is standing there, the purloined and pacified child held fast in his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Buffy makes a strangulated cry as she crosses the distance between her and her baby, collecting him from the arms of his abductor as though bringing to light something precious from antiquity. Mere seconds tick by before hatred overtakes her hazel-eyed stare. Before she can pass the infant into someone else’s arms, a fist she hoped would be hers flies in Travis’ face.
“You fucking bastard!” Spike screams as he lands another punch against Travis’ cheek. The teenager lies crumbled on the carpeted floor, breathing blood from his nose. Spike lifts him effortlessly and swipes his face across the row of infuriatingly cheerful Hummel figurines, sending them all to the floor.
As he is held, squirming, from a loop of his cargo pants, Travis begs, “Please don’t kill me.”
“‘Please don’t kill me’? Do you know how often I’ve heard that? And do you know how often that plea has worked on me?” Spike rams the boy’s head into the glass of the bookshelf in front of him. “If you answered never, you win!”
“Spike, stop!” Dawn orders in a head-clutching howl.
He looks at Dawn, his actions ceased by the passion of her words. He is almost ready to say he is sorry, but then…
“This is my fight!” Dawn says through clenched teeth.
What happens next could be the rapture of her betrayal, or the long dormant power of her Keyness coming into play. Or it could be the fact that a woman wronged is rising above the girl everyone thought she was and is showing herself in a roar of rage. She strikes one blow against his cheek that sends him flying across the room, crashing into a pink and white striped wingback chair
“You used me!” she screams as she plucks him up by the collar of his Eddie Bauer button down. “You said you loved me!”
“And…I…do…” Travis says, clutching at the tightening collar around his throat. “You liar!” is her retort as she punches him again.
Travis spits out a fountain of blood, looking surprised to not find a stray tooth or two contained within the scarlet spray. He struggles in her grasp, only to be felled with another punch to the jaw. “Listen!” he begs sibilantly. “Dawn, please!”
“I’m done listening to you!” she says, drawing his collar tight across his neck.
“Dawn, I mean it!” he gasps, trying desperately to pry her hands away. “I came back for a reason.”
“And I’d like to hear it. Right after I do this.”
A strategically aimed knee to a particularly sensitive area sends Travis back to the floor where he lies curled in a fetal position, ruing the day that he ever sprouted nuts.
Through his whimpers of pain, there is another sincere apology and then the words, “We’re all going to hell, we’re all going to hell. If Daniel doesn’t die, we’re all going to hell. The church is burning. Satan is coming.” He takes a breath and then says. “Daniel is our savior.”
“Your pitiful church’s savior? I don’t think so!” Spike answers, placing protective arms around Buffy and his son.
“Not just ours,” the boy says hoarsely as he winces from another ripple of pain. Everybody’s. The whole world’s.”
The living room is silent now.
Travis sits on an ottoman, an icepack on his jaw and between his legs. Giles paces the floor, seized in thought, going over the details of Travis’ confession in his mind. Buffy rocks Daniel in her arms, worry knitting her brow, aging her far beyond her twenty-one years. Spike stands behind her, his demon muted for the time being, but it’s taking all his strength not to make Travis’ throat a memory. He studies Dawn, just steps away from where he stands, finding her reeling in a demon of her own. Her eyes are cold, her expression steely and fixed as a general’s in the trenches, wearing the gore of battle. A few teardrop sized spatters of Travis’ blood scar her face, but she is either unaware of the blood or is wearing it proudly. He is not sure. If there is anything that he is certain of, he knows that she would have killed Travis if the news of the impending Armageddon hadn’t spilled out in his cries of post-traumatic ball injury.
Travis has told them about the church, the minion from hell who helped construct it, the promise that Satan would return, the opening that appeared in the basement, inconspicuous at first, now roaring at full-throttle in the sanctuary, slowly consuming the earth with the fire down below.
Giles pauses momentarily, scraping his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Your congregation conjured up Satan.”
“Yes,” Travis answers slowly. “But it wasn’t our fault. Or their fault. They just wanted to build a church. That’s all.”
“And you think that Buffy and Spike’s child will stop this?” Giles, again, uses his words carefully. He’s not about to speak aloud anything that might allude to the child’s death.
Travis is still not ready to divulge the secret. The altar boy in him is still keeping the flame. When the Watcher fists his unruly hair and jerks his head upward, he is more willing to speak. “We’re all going to hell.”
“Oh, stop with the Billy Graham-isms already!” Spike says. “Tell us something useful!”
“That’s it,” Travis says softly. “We’re all going to hell. Tonight. Oh, God…” The boy buries his face in his hands. “We are. We’re all going to hell.”
“You’ve told us this,” Giles says, relinquishing his hold on the boy’s hair. “Now. Once again. How is Daniel supposed to stop this?”
The boy repositions the icepack on his jaw, flinching from the sight of Dawn’s still curled fist.
“‘The Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior.’” Travis mumbles.
“Come again?” Giles asks.
Travis stiffens, knowing that speaking this bit of liturgy outside the church and to non-church members is the unwritten eighth deadly sin. He sighs and repeats, “‘The Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior.’”
“But how did you…?” Buffy aims an accusatory glance Dawn’s way which is answered with a shrug of the shoulders.
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Travis continues. “Mom was kinda suspicious. She sent me out, one night, to the Bronze, just to test her theory.”
Buffy remembers this. The sleazy vamp looking for a feed, the intended victim eating spicy hot buffalo wings dipped in dressing. Revulsion overcomes her as she says, “Your mother sent you out to be---
“She knew the risks. So did I,” Travis says with a slight shiver. “I was in it for the church’s sake. When you’re told you’re going to hell, you’re going to hell, over and over, you’ll do almost anything not to.” He demurs, not able to look at Dawn without wanting to cry. “But I fell in love with you, Dawn, before I knew that Buffy was your sister.”
“Like I’m going to believe you now,” Dawn says through clenched teeth.
“Believe what you want. I love you. And when I found out Buffy was what Buffy was, I wished I had never seen you because I do love you more than anything in the world.”
“Don’t say that!” Dawn says, moisture rippling over her hate-filled eyes.
“You don’t know what it is to love someone more than anything in the world,” Spike says, cradling Buffy and his son.
“But I do,” Travis says. Dawn’s hatred of him is scoring his heart, leaving open, bleeding wounds. “When I held Daniel, I couldn’t let them…do what they were planning to do.” He looks at Daniel, nestled in Buffy’s loving embrace. “A mother’s love. It’s the most powerful instinct in the universe. Probably more powerful than a Slayer’s strength.”
“It is,” Buffy says softly, curling her index finger under Daniel’s feather light grasp. She never knew what it was to love until she had Daniel. She never knew what it was like to suffer until she thought she lost him. And her heart has never grieved more at the thought that her child, the minute replication of her flesh, bone and blood, is being counted on to die for the world. “Travis, why did you come back?” she asks.
Travis’ expression is blank at first, but then his features soften when he looks at the baby’s contented face as he stares adoringly, trustingly, at his mother. “I’ve been asking this for a long time. I’ve asked Mom, my Sunday school teachers, Reverend Estey. Is there some other way to stop this? And I’m always told, ‘The Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior.’ But tonight, when I was holding Daniel, I knew he was just a normal baby, a tiny little person who is loved by his parents. I couldn’t go through with it. There has to be something else. Something else to keep us from going to Hell. I thought that Giles, as Buffy’s Watcher, might know.”
It is so bizarre to hear an outsider refer to him as Buffy’s Watcher that a breath catches in Giles’ throat.
Travis offers a crooked smile. “In Sunday school, we’re told about Watchers. They’re sort of like prophets to us.”
“But how did you know that I was---
“You’re older, not her father, not her sugar daddy. Give me some credit,” Travis says.
Giles nods. “So this phrase you keep saying over and over. ‘The Slayer and a demon will combine and raise for you a savior.’ Where did this come from?”
“From St. Catherine herself. She appeared to the members of the original congregation and that was her message. Some of the church members did some research. They found some old text that told about how the Slayer and a vampire would become lovers and the two of them would produce a being to save the world.”
“Do you know what text it was?” Giles asks.
Travis shrugs. “I don’t know. Something about Aurelius or something.”
“Aurelius?” Giles says. “You don’t mean the prophecy of Aurelius, do you?”
“That could be it. I don’t know.”
Giles’ stare comes to rest on Spike. The latest bit of information is settling uncomfortably on his shoulders, his already blanched skin whitening further as he takes it all in. For the first time that Giles can remember, he and Spike are sharing the same train of thought and at the bend in the track, there is a wreck.
“Good God,” Spike mutters.
“What?” Buffy says, swiveling around to meet Spike’s shock-riddled face.
“The prophecy of Aurelius,” Giles says, shoving a hand under his jaw. “I thought that it had been fulfilled with Angel’s death.”
“I sort of hoped it had,” Spike says dejectedly.
Buffy whips her head from Giles to Spike and back to Giles, not knowing whom to look at as neither has a particularly hopeful expression. The conspiratorial nature of their unspoken communication is taking her breath, so much so that she sputters when she asks, “W-what are you talking about? W-what prophecy?”
“Centuries ago it was predicted that a member of the Master’s line would die to save the world,” Giles says matter of factly. “The Slayer would take a demon as her lover and from that union would arise a savior to rescue humanity from Hell. It’s only natural that the church would assume that the savior would take the form of a infant, since the whole of Christianity is based on the birth of a child and God’s sacrifice of His only son.”
“So what has to happen?” Buffy asks, her heart pounding as though she already knows. And she does.
“It’s very simple, love.” Spike says, swallowing hard as he draws her closer to him. “In order to keep the world from ending, I have to die tonight.”