Strange Nights
By Amanda Lord
Rating: G
Summary: Spike finds something very strange in Buffy's room when he returns souled from Africa.
a/n: Yeah so I have so many fics going and I really should be finishing them before I do these little vignettes, however I have been feeling fluffy lately. I will finish everything else. I swear. Soon.
Spike picked up the item that he had found and looked at it suspiciously.
He didn't expect to find anything like this in Buffy's bedroom. He had seen them before, never really had given them much a thought. Dru loved them, but he had always thought that they were more trouble than they were worth.
The baby was soft and smelled like powder. It was also up at midnight. The moonlight was streaming thought the window and Spike had found the child sitting up looking at the huge orb outside of its window. The little thing was simply dangling between Spike's hands. The little thing was sucking on its fist.
Spike looked at it blinking. He would admit that coming back to see Buffy after a year and a half had caused him to drink quite a bit of alcohol. Actually he knew that he was completely schnockered. He didn't think he had lost his bleedin mind.
"Wrong house," Spike muttered, but he knew better. He had spent so much time looking into her window he would know it with his eyes closed. He considered that they had moved, but new owner would have revoked his welcome privilege.
"So you live here?" Spike asked the child carrying it around the room.
The child looked at him with wide eyes, the fist never left his mouth.
Spike looked around the room and knew for a fact that this was no longer Buffy's room. The room was done in green and yellow. There was the crib, and those little things that parents always seemed to need for a little baby.
Spike put the baby on the floor as he began to pace.
"So really what the bleedin hell is going on?"
Spike looked down suddenly at the child, "You didn't hear that. You didn't learn that from me."
Spike closed one eye and attempted to focus on the child. The kid just sat there sucking on its fist looking up at Spike.
"Okay," Spike said sitting down next to the baby, "Something weird has gone on while I was getting my rocks knocked all around."
Spike looked suspiciously at the child, "You wouldn't want to fill me in, would you?"
The child continued to suck on his fist.
Spike pulled at the hand.
"Ewww," Spike said in disgust looking at the saliva soaked baby fist, "That is nasty."
****
Spike laid with his head on Mr. Gordo. The baby had returned his fist to his mouth and was looking at Spike once again. He didn't know why he was there, he had found recently that his soul mixed with alcohol made him really maudlin.
"So she moved on, eh," Spike said looking at the child, "You know you look nothing like her. I mean I would think that you were the nibblet's, but you know what I don't want to think about killing anyone tonight and if someone did that to her than I would have to kill him."
The baby slurped.
"So you're hers. Just so you know I don't like you, you are part of some wanker."
The baby nodded and continued its feast on its fist.
Spike studied the baby.
"Well you're not the Whelp's baby, at least I can sleep sanely. You are too blonde and such. You don't have a big chin and a goofy smile. You're all together too cute to be that wanker's."
"Not that your cute!" Spike said insistently, "I mean Buffy is good looking and all and you have her genes, but you are tainted."
Spike tilted his head, "You could be Captain Cardboard's."
With that the baby began to cry. The sudden noise scared Spike so much he slipped into game face. With that the baby stopped the howling and began to giggle.
Spike reached up and touched the ridges as the little child squealed and clapped his hands. Spike slipped back into his regular visage.
Spike blinked there was something that he seemed to need remembering, but he didn't really want to think about that.
"So you like that and you don't seem to like GI Joe," Spike leaned in and looked at the child more closely, "So little guy you have blue eyes. Does the Universal Soldier have blue eyes. Hmm. I think they were brown. They could have been blue though."
Spike's mouth suddenly soured.
"Now I wish I remembered the wanker's eye color, I'm joining the nancy club with every word that comes out of my mouth."
The child giggled.
Spike looked at him through slits in his eyes, "I have eaten babies before don't push me."
The child renewed his gnawing on his fist, but Spike swore his eyes were mocking him.
***
"So she says, 'Get the hell away from my daughter."
Spike chuckled.
"Your gram was a great woman. She made the best hot chocolate with these little marshmallows in it. Don't let that fool you though she would not let anything hurt her daughters. So you see you come from a long line of tough women. I warn you only because as a man you don't stand a chance."
Spike took off his duster and threw it on the rocking chair.
"See the thing is that is why I never fit in. that is why they never accepted me as a Scooby. Sure they could accept the weak willed Xander, but when it comes to yours truly then they just can't take a bloke who actually is strong. I mean the Xander is normal and they can accept normal men, but not strong men who could equal them."
Spike laid down on his side and looked at the baby.
"You know why they like him."
The baby just watched him with wide eyes.
"They like him because he is predictable. That is it."
The baby looked at him harder and continued to suck on his fist.
Spike rolled his eyes, "Okay I'm not being completely truthful. That isn't the only reason. I mean I never really tried to help without incentive. Then I kind of went a bit overboard when I realized that I loved her."
Spike went silent. He shuddered and he thought that he was lost again. He was lost to the months that he was drowning in it all. Most of the time he didn't mind all that he had done. Then he would remember Buffy. The one thing that he regretted. The one thing that caused him more pain than anything. The there would be the black outs.
That is when he felt it. The sopping little first came upon his cheek
Spike looked up at the baby.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," he whispered to the baby, "I didn't mean to. I made a mistake, but I love her. I have tried not to, but I can't help it. I wish that I would tell her how sorry I am."
The baby made a move and Spike picked him up and put the baby on his chest. He held the baby close to him and the baby cooed and snuggled into the vampire.
***
Spike fell asleep with Mr. Gordo under his head. The baby was curled up on the Big Bad's chest. The little bottom was in the air and his little mouth was now empty, puckered in a little O.
Buffy stepped over the sleeping figures and closed the blinds. She then walked to the baby monitor and clicked a switch. The red light went off.
"I hate sleeping vampires," she said to the pair on the floor who were both sleeping like the dead, "They look like corpses. It gives me the wiggings."
Neither figure stirred at her announcement.
She sighed and covered them up with a blanket that was kept on the back of the rocking chair. Then she settled in the chair and watched the pair sleep.
Buffy smiled. She had been worried, but she had heard enough to know that things were finally going to be okay.
****
Spike woke up with a weight on his chest, ringing in his ears, and a fowl smell in his nose.
He thought that he was simply his usual hung over until something came and took the agony away.
"Shhhh," he heard a sweet voice say, "Don't cry. Let's get you cleaned up."
Spike cracked his eyes and he could see Buffy at the table thing with the little thing that he had spent so long with last night.
"Gross," Spike said as he saw her changing her diaper, "All that comes out of such a little thing."
Buffy looked down at him, "Oh great master of murder and mayhem the cause of so many bloody limbs of so many victims I am sorry that a child's diaper disgusts you so."
These were their first words to each other in a year and a half.
Buffy smiled down at him and Spike finally woke up. He realized that he was sitting here. She wasn't mad, she looked….bemused. He had run for a year and a half and the thing that he was running from didn't ask him questions, didn't offer him explanations.
She simply glowed. She had this little smile on her lips and her skin was luminous. She carried with her a child. She would never look the part of mother earth, but she looked so comfortable in her own skin. She didn't really say anything else, but she motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen.
Spike got off the floor. His body didn't want to respond after a night on the floor, but he was damned again if he was going to wait to see where this was heading.
When he got downstairs the little saliva beast was in a high chair and Buffy was preparing some kind of muck for the child to eat.
"So," Spike said.
"So what?" Buffy asked innocently sitting down before the high chair.
Spike kicked himself. He felt like a bleedin' ponce. He just wanted to run again. The pain of wanting her was nothing compared to this agony of being next to her and having her welcome him while she fed some other bloke's child.
"So what is the little thing's name?" Spike asked for lack of anything else to say, "He wasn't very forthcoming last night. Spent most of the time just eating his hand. Makes me think that perhaps his father was a flesh eating demon."
Buffy ignored his babbles and went straight for the question he asked her.
"His name is Gabriel Ryland Rupert."
Spike looked at her in shock, "You're kidding me? Did you let the Whelp name him?"
Buffy make a small noise of omission, "It was actually Xander and Willow, they decided that I was going to name him the first two names and then they thought it would be cute to have a child with the initials GRR."
Spike rolled his eyes, "I should have killed him last night, luv, no wonder he wants to eat himself."
Buffy laughed. She actually laughed a full right out laugh at the antics of Spike. Spike's body wouldn't react for a moment. He was frozen. He couldn't remember making her laugh, really laugh before.
She got up and pulled a packet of blood from the freezer. She put it in the microwave.
"You can have breakfast in a sec. Hopefully frozen blood tastes the same and all, I think I have something for you to mix it with…"
Buffy trailed off as she saw the look on Spike's face.
"What?' She asked honestly confused.
"Angel, you had a child with Angel?"
Buffy looked with a blank look on her face, "Where did you get that wonderful insight from?"
"Blood in the fridge, you wouldn't keep blood in the fridge for nothing."
Buffy looked up at him angrily, "Looks like I did."
She turned around and picked up the child. As she did her strawberry blonde glinted next to the dark golden hair of her child as they passed through the sunlight.
****
William looked at his reflection in the mirror. He fixed his tie for his big night. Tonight he was going to approach Cecily. She would swoon at the intellect of his poetry. He ran a hand through his hair. The hair glinted a dusty golden in the candle light.
****
Spike wanted to call to her as she left the room, but his jaw refused to work.
He remembered the baby's deep blue eyes.
****
William adjusted his glasses and took stock of himself before he left for the event for the evening. It was almost as if he knew it would be the last time he ever looked in the mirror at himself.
He adjusted his glasses.
For one second he looked into his eyes. He attempted to gather confidence.
They shone back at him a deep blue.
****
Spike fumbled to the bottom of the steps.
"Buffy," he croaked.
Buffy turned at the top of the stairs.
"What?" she asked angrily.
Spike hesitated. He was feeling his entire life and unlife shake around him. He was scared, he didn't know what of, he didn't know which words would hurt the most.
"Why…why did," Spike began hesitantly, "Why did you name him Ryland?"
Buffy looked down at him.
*You're beneath me.*
Spike tried to block the words, but at that second he knew it was true. He didn't deserve the answer.
She gave it to him anyway.
"It is his grandmother's maiden name," Buffy said hollowly.
Spike felt stone pass through him. He couldn't run anymore. He was stuck where he was.
"That name died out one-hundred and fifty years ago when the last Ryland got married."
Spike heard his voice, but he didn't know where it came from. It was a whisper that sounded like a shout.
Buffy shrugged, "I know. I can do research you know. I've got lots of practice.
"Can I see him?" Spike whispered.
Buffy hesitated so long that Spike was afraid that Buffy wasn't going to grant him this request. She did however come down the stairs. She stood in front of him. Gabriel looked up at him with those eyes that he recently remembered. He didn't want to remember much about his human life, but there was something.
Spike reached out and took a chubby fist.
"What color are my eyes?" he asked, already knowing.
Buffy looked up at him, biting her lips.
"They're the blue of the ocean in the moonlight," she said softly with a look that he never thought that she would bestow on him, "They're the color of the sky around the moon. They're…"
Her voice broke. She looked up at him, tears finding their way to the surface.
"They're the exact color of his eyes," Buffy said looking at his son.
"How is this possible?" Spike asked hoarsely.
Buffy shrugged. She didn't know what else to say. She just smiled and put Gabriel into his arms.
"When do you smile so much, Slayer?" Spike asked hoarsely.
"Since you got back."
Spike looked down at the child in his arms. The child had curled up and fallen asleep.
"He's comfortable," Buffy said smiling still. For a moment Spike stood with the woman he loved and the child that he had created. He was in awe.
She looked up at him with fear in her eyes the smile fading, "Will you stay?"
In that question he heard all that he knew had ever hurt her. She was offering herself and her child as a way to make him stay. She was hoping that it was enough.
Spike sat down on a step, careful not to let the child wake up.
"I was always planning on coming back," Spike mumbled, "I just had to go get something to give you. Then I had to make sure that it wasn't all weak."
"You got me something?" Buffy asked, very confused.
"Yeah. I got you a soul, so I know. So I won't make that kind of mistake again."
"I got you a baby," Buffy said weakly, "I kept him because he was part of you."
"But I am…"
Buffy put her finger to his lips.
"I know what you are," she informed him. With that she sat down on the steps next to him and put her head on his shoulder.
The silence began. A shocked vampire held a child that he could never envision having and a Slayer, no a woman, a human, who looked at him with honest joy coming from every pore of her body. A content Slayer with a vampire who had turned his back on everything he had thought he was in order to be what she wanted him to be.
They sat there on the stairs, not talking, just being.
****
By Amanda Lord
Rating: G
Summary: Spike finds something very strange in Buffy's room when he returns souled from Africa.
a/n: Yeah so I have so many fics going and I really should be finishing them before I do these little vignettes, however I have been feeling fluffy lately. I will finish everything else. I swear. Soon.
Spike picked up the item that he had found and looked at it suspiciously.
He didn't expect to find anything like this in Buffy's bedroom. He had seen them before, never really had given them much a thought. Dru loved them, but he had always thought that they were more trouble than they were worth.
The baby was soft and smelled like powder. It was also up at midnight. The moonlight was streaming thought the window and Spike had found the child sitting up looking at the huge orb outside of its window. The little thing was simply dangling between Spike's hands. The little thing was sucking on its fist.
Spike looked at it blinking. He would admit that coming back to see Buffy after a year and a half had caused him to drink quite a bit of alcohol. Actually he knew that he was completely schnockered. He didn't think he had lost his bleedin mind.
"Wrong house," Spike muttered, but he knew better. He had spent so much time looking into her window he would know it with his eyes closed. He considered that they had moved, but new owner would have revoked his welcome privilege.
"So you live here?" Spike asked the child carrying it around the room.
The child looked at him with wide eyes, the fist never left his mouth.
Spike looked around the room and knew for a fact that this was no longer Buffy's room. The room was done in green and yellow. There was the crib, and those little things that parents always seemed to need for a little baby.
Spike put the baby on the floor as he began to pace.
"So really what the bleedin hell is going on?"
Spike looked down suddenly at the child, "You didn't hear that. You didn't learn that from me."
Spike closed one eye and attempted to focus on the child. The kid just sat there sucking on its fist looking up at Spike.
"Okay," Spike said sitting down next to the baby, "Something weird has gone on while I was getting my rocks knocked all around."
Spike looked suspiciously at the child, "You wouldn't want to fill me in, would you?"
The child continued to suck on his fist.
Spike pulled at the hand.
"Ewww," Spike said in disgust looking at the saliva soaked baby fist, "That is nasty."
****
Spike laid with his head on Mr. Gordo. The baby had returned his fist to his mouth and was looking at Spike once again. He didn't know why he was there, he had found recently that his soul mixed with alcohol made him really maudlin.
"So she moved on, eh," Spike said looking at the child, "You know you look nothing like her. I mean I would think that you were the nibblet's, but you know what I don't want to think about killing anyone tonight and if someone did that to her than I would have to kill him."
The baby slurped.
"So you're hers. Just so you know I don't like you, you are part of some wanker."
The baby nodded and continued its feast on its fist.
Spike studied the baby.
"Well you're not the Whelp's baby, at least I can sleep sanely. You are too blonde and such. You don't have a big chin and a goofy smile. You're all together too cute to be that wanker's."
"Not that your cute!" Spike said insistently, "I mean Buffy is good looking and all and you have her genes, but you are tainted."
Spike tilted his head, "You could be Captain Cardboard's."
With that the baby began to cry. The sudden noise scared Spike so much he slipped into game face. With that the baby stopped the howling and began to giggle.
Spike reached up and touched the ridges as the little child squealed and clapped his hands. Spike slipped back into his regular visage.
Spike blinked there was something that he seemed to need remembering, but he didn't really want to think about that.
"So you like that and you don't seem to like GI Joe," Spike leaned in and looked at the child more closely, "So little guy you have blue eyes. Does the Universal Soldier have blue eyes. Hmm. I think they were brown. They could have been blue though."
Spike's mouth suddenly soured.
"Now I wish I remembered the wanker's eye color, I'm joining the nancy club with every word that comes out of my mouth."
The child giggled.
Spike looked at him through slits in his eyes, "I have eaten babies before don't push me."
The child renewed his gnawing on his fist, but Spike swore his eyes were mocking him.
***
"So she says, 'Get the hell away from my daughter."
Spike chuckled.
"Your gram was a great woman. She made the best hot chocolate with these little marshmallows in it. Don't let that fool you though she would not let anything hurt her daughters. So you see you come from a long line of tough women. I warn you only because as a man you don't stand a chance."
Spike took off his duster and threw it on the rocking chair.
"See the thing is that is why I never fit in. that is why they never accepted me as a Scooby. Sure they could accept the weak willed Xander, but when it comes to yours truly then they just can't take a bloke who actually is strong. I mean the Xander is normal and they can accept normal men, but not strong men who could equal them."
Spike laid down on his side and looked at the baby.
"You know why they like him."
The baby just watched him with wide eyes.
"They like him because he is predictable. That is it."
The baby looked at him harder and continued to suck on his fist.
Spike rolled his eyes, "Okay I'm not being completely truthful. That isn't the only reason. I mean I never really tried to help without incentive. Then I kind of went a bit overboard when I realized that I loved her."
Spike went silent. He shuddered and he thought that he was lost again. He was lost to the months that he was drowning in it all. Most of the time he didn't mind all that he had done. Then he would remember Buffy. The one thing that he regretted. The one thing that caused him more pain than anything. The there would be the black outs.
That is when he felt it. The sopping little first came upon his cheek
Spike looked up at the baby.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," he whispered to the baby, "I didn't mean to. I made a mistake, but I love her. I have tried not to, but I can't help it. I wish that I would tell her how sorry I am."
The baby made a move and Spike picked him up and put the baby on his chest. He held the baby close to him and the baby cooed and snuggled into the vampire.
***
Spike fell asleep with Mr. Gordo under his head. The baby was curled up on the Big Bad's chest. The little bottom was in the air and his little mouth was now empty, puckered in a little O.
Buffy stepped over the sleeping figures and closed the blinds. She then walked to the baby monitor and clicked a switch. The red light went off.
"I hate sleeping vampires," she said to the pair on the floor who were both sleeping like the dead, "They look like corpses. It gives me the wiggings."
Neither figure stirred at her announcement.
She sighed and covered them up with a blanket that was kept on the back of the rocking chair. Then she settled in the chair and watched the pair sleep.
Buffy smiled. She had been worried, but she had heard enough to know that things were finally going to be okay.
****
Spike woke up with a weight on his chest, ringing in his ears, and a fowl smell in his nose.
He thought that he was simply his usual hung over until something came and took the agony away.
"Shhhh," he heard a sweet voice say, "Don't cry. Let's get you cleaned up."
Spike cracked his eyes and he could see Buffy at the table thing with the little thing that he had spent so long with last night.
"Gross," Spike said as he saw her changing her diaper, "All that comes out of such a little thing."
Buffy looked down at him, "Oh great master of murder and mayhem the cause of so many bloody limbs of so many victims I am sorry that a child's diaper disgusts you so."
These were their first words to each other in a year and a half.
Buffy smiled down at him and Spike finally woke up. He realized that he was sitting here. She wasn't mad, she looked….bemused. He had run for a year and a half and the thing that he was running from didn't ask him questions, didn't offer him explanations.
She simply glowed. She had this little smile on her lips and her skin was luminous. She carried with her a child. She would never look the part of mother earth, but she looked so comfortable in her own skin. She didn't really say anything else, but she motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen.
Spike got off the floor. His body didn't want to respond after a night on the floor, but he was damned again if he was going to wait to see where this was heading.
When he got downstairs the little saliva beast was in a high chair and Buffy was preparing some kind of muck for the child to eat.
"So," Spike said.
"So what?" Buffy asked innocently sitting down before the high chair.
Spike kicked himself. He felt like a bleedin' ponce. He just wanted to run again. The pain of wanting her was nothing compared to this agony of being next to her and having her welcome him while she fed some other bloke's child.
"So what is the little thing's name?" Spike asked for lack of anything else to say, "He wasn't very forthcoming last night. Spent most of the time just eating his hand. Makes me think that perhaps his father was a flesh eating demon."
Buffy ignored his babbles and went straight for the question he asked her.
"His name is Gabriel Ryland Rupert."
Spike looked at her in shock, "You're kidding me? Did you let the Whelp name him?"
Buffy make a small noise of omission, "It was actually Xander and Willow, they decided that I was going to name him the first two names and then they thought it would be cute to have a child with the initials GRR."
Spike rolled his eyes, "I should have killed him last night, luv, no wonder he wants to eat himself."
Buffy laughed. She actually laughed a full right out laugh at the antics of Spike. Spike's body wouldn't react for a moment. He was frozen. He couldn't remember making her laugh, really laugh before.
She got up and pulled a packet of blood from the freezer. She put it in the microwave.
"You can have breakfast in a sec. Hopefully frozen blood tastes the same and all, I think I have something for you to mix it with…"
Buffy trailed off as she saw the look on Spike's face.
"What?' She asked honestly confused.
"Angel, you had a child with Angel?"
Buffy looked with a blank look on her face, "Where did you get that wonderful insight from?"
"Blood in the fridge, you wouldn't keep blood in the fridge for nothing."
Buffy looked up at him angrily, "Looks like I did."
She turned around and picked up the child. As she did her strawberry blonde glinted next to the dark golden hair of her child as they passed through the sunlight.
****
William looked at his reflection in the mirror. He fixed his tie for his big night. Tonight he was going to approach Cecily. She would swoon at the intellect of his poetry. He ran a hand through his hair. The hair glinted a dusty golden in the candle light.
****
Spike wanted to call to her as she left the room, but his jaw refused to work.
He remembered the baby's deep blue eyes.
****
William adjusted his glasses and took stock of himself before he left for the event for the evening. It was almost as if he knew it would be the last time he ever looked in the mirror at himself.
He adjusted his glasses.
For one second he looked into his eyes. He attempted to gather confidence.
They shone back at him a deep blue.
****
Spike fumbled to the bottom of the steps.
"Buffy," he croaked.
Buffy turned at the top of the stairs.
"What?" she asked angrily.
Spike hesitated. He was feeling his entire life and unlife shake around him. He was scared, he didn't know what of, he didn't know which words would hurt the most.
"Why…why did," Spike began hesitantly, "Why did you name him Ryland?"
Buffy looked down at him.
*You're beneath me.*
Spike tried to block the words, but at that second he knew it was true. He didn't deserve the answer.
She gave it to him anyway.
"It is his grandmother's maiden name," Buffy said hollowly.
Spike felt stone pass through him. He couldn't run anymore. He was stuck where he was.
"That name died out one-hundred and fifty years ago when the last Ryland got married."
Spike heard his voice, but he didn't know where it came from. It was a whisper that sounded like a shout.
Buffy shrugged, "I know. I can do research you know. I've got lots of practice.
"Can I see him?" Spike whispered.
Buffy hesitated so long that Spike was afraid that Buffy wasn't going to grant him this request. She did however come down the stairs. She stood in front of him. Gabriel looked up at him with those eyes that he recently remembered. He didn't want to remember much about his human life, but there was something.
Spike reached out and took a chubby fist.
"What color are my eyes?" he asked, already knowing.
Buffy looked up at him, biting her lips.
"They're the blue of the ocean in the moonlight," she said softly with a look that he never thought that she would bestow on him, "They're the color of the sky around the moon. They're…"
Her voice broke. She looked up at him, tears finding their way to the surface.
"They're the exact color of his eyes," Buffy said looking at his son.
"How is this possible?" Spike asked hoarsely.
Buffy shrugged. She didn't know what else to say. She just smiled and put Gabriel into his arms.
"When do you smile so much, Slayer?" Spike asked hoarsely.
"Since you got back."
Spike looked down at the child in his arms. The child had curled up and fallen asleep.
"He's comfortable," Buffy said smiling still. For a moment Spike stood with the woman he loved and the child that he had created. He was in awe.
She looked up at him with fear in her eyes the smile fading, "Will you stay?"
In that question he heard all that he knew had ever hurt her. She was offering herself and her child as a way to make him stay. She was hoping that it was enough.
Spike sat down on a step, careful not to let the child wake up.
"I was always planning on coming back," Spike mumbled, "I just had to go get something to give you. Then I had to make sure that it wasn't all weak."
"You got me something?" Buffy asked, very confused.
"Yeah. I got you a soul, so I know. So I won't make that kind of mistake again."
"I got you a baby," Buffy said weakly, "I kept him because he was part of you."
"But I am…"
Buffy put her finger to his lips.
"I know what you are," she informed him. With that she sat down on the steps next to him and put her head on his shoulder.
The silence began. A shocked vampire held a child that he could never envision having and a Slayer, no a woman, a human, who looked at him with honest joy coming from every pore of her body. A content Slayer with a vampire who had turned his back on everything he had thought he was in order to be what she wanted him to be.
They sat there on the stairs, not talking, just being.
****