Title: Living In Danger
Author: MSKBSwedish
Rating: Mature
Summery: Set four years after the first story 'Midnight Sun'. Buffy and Spike's daughter Linn is now four years old and it's up to Spike and Buffy to protect their little girl from demons and other sorts of evil when the word gets out that the Slayer and the Slayer of Slayers have a child together. Set as M for heavy adult themes at times.
Note: I own nothing of the Buffyverse.
Chapter One – Who's Your Daddy?
It was late at night when the little blonde woke from her sleep. She had been having a terrible nightmare. Her eyes were red from the tears that slipped out during her fitful night of sleep. Even if it happened often, she still hated it. It scared her. The little blond wiped her eyes on her sleeve and grabbed her teddy bear. She wanted her mommy and daddy.
Pushing back the multicolored blanket from her body, she threw her legs over the side of her bed before hopping down. The soft carpet padded her feet when she landed. Quickly, she opened her door and walked down the hallway. The cold hardwood floors sent shivers up her spine. Finally when she reached the door she was looking for, she turned the knob and pushed it open. She swallowed past the lump in her throat when her father's body came into view.
Slowly and quietly, she shut the door before walking up to the bed wanting her mother and father's comforting embrace.
"Daddy?" She whispered while shaking his arm. "Daddy, wake up." A fresh set of tears fell from her eyes the longer she had to wait to hear her father's comforting voice. "Daddy?" She asked once more, this time she tried shaking his shoulder.
His eyes fluttered opened when he realized he wasn't dreaming. His daughter's face came into view the moment his sight adjusted. "Linny, love." Spike said in a coarse voice. "What's the matter, bit?" He asked. He propped himself up on his elbow.
"Daddy I had anover scary dream." Linn cried softly.
"Come on, then." Spike told the small child. He held his hand out for her to take and helped her climb into the bed.
"Daddy? Where's mummy?" Linn asked when she didn't see her mom in the bed beside her dad.
Spike knew that Buffy was out patrolling. They never went out together for safety purposes. Someone always stayed home to be around to protect Linn. Plus, if one parent was injured or.. worse. Linn would always have at least one parent who was there.
"Mummy is alright, darling. She just went for a walk." Spike answered as he tucked his daughter into his arms and under the blankets securely.
Linn buried her head in her father's strong chest and sniffled. Nothing felt safer than her daddy's arms. Linn had become such a daddy's girl too. She had him wrapped around her tiny little finger and he was at her beckoning call.
"Shh. It's alright, love. Daddy's here." Spike reassured his baby girl. He stroked her back gently. He used his fingertips to stroke up and down Linn's back. He hated to see his daughter cry and especially to be so scared of a dream. He knew of the real big bad things out there in the world and Buffy made sure that she wanted that life far away from Linn at least until she was old enough to understand it. Spike wished he knew what in her dreams scared her so bad. It was becoming a weekly thing within the past year or so. At least once a week she was in bed with her parents from a bad dream.
It didn't take long before Linn was fast asleep hugging her bear while her father held her safely in his arms.
Hours later, Buffy had come home. When she went to check on Linn, like she has always done, she found that she was not in her bed. She sighed and closed the door softly behind her.
Making her way down the hall, Buff slowly opened the door. Her suspicions were proved to be right when she laid eyes on Spike and Linn in bed sleeping. Spike was sprawled out on his back and Linn was curled up in the crook of his arm and actually hugging his arm while her teddy bear lay on Buffy's side of the bed. Buffy couldn't help but smile.
She closed the door softly behind her and got undressed and into something for bed. When she climbed into the bed she placed the teddy bear which Linn has named "Mr. Teddy" on her nightstand before settling in beside Spike and Linn.
The movement must have alerted Spike because he popped his head up and looked around before realizing it was Buffy.
"Shh. Go to sleep." Buffy whispered to Spike. She reached across their daughter and laid a hand against his hand that was resting on his stomach.
"You startled me." Spike croaked.
"I know. I'm sorry. Go back to sleep." Buffy whispered again.
Spike gently rolled over so that he was on his side facing Buffy but careful not to disturb their sleeping child between them. He reached over and rested a hand on her hip.
"I'm glad you're home." Spike said, his eyes just barely open.
"Me too." Buffy said with a yawn.
The morning came way too fast. Thankfully it was Buffy's turn to sleep in a little late. She had been out most of the night patrolling and getting her ass whooped by some vampire who thought he could match her and for a moment, she wondered if he could but her wooden stake in his chest said otherwise.
Spike had taken Linn downstairs to make her breakfast because the child had woken him up asking for breakfast. He knew tending to her would give Buffy more time to sleep too.
Spike sat Linn on the counter while he began getting out the ingredients for breakfast. His and hers.
Early on, Spike and Buffy found on their own that their daughter was indeed much more special than they had ever imagined. The parents wanted to know why their daughter wasn't appearing to grow like a normal child should. She was tiny for a long time. They didn't understand it until something struck in Spike's mind. He began mixing blood in with their daughter's formula. Within weeks she was beginning to show signs of progression. Of course it wasn't out of the ordinary progression but now she was seeming to grow like a normal child.
Buffy didn't like the idea at first but Spike had made a good argument that she was apart of him too. She was one of the first half-vampire, half-humans and there were going to be some tweaks to the laws of children.
At first it was just them mixing in with her liquid food. Now at four years old, they were giving it to her to drink. She still craved human food but the blood kept her vampire side nourished.
"Daddy? I want pancakes." Linn giggled as she watched her father warming up the blood that the innocent child believed was juice.
"Alright, toots. Do you want bacon or sausage with your pancakes?" Spike asked the little girl who swung her legs.
"Mm..." Linn thought. "Chocolate!" Linn giggled, trying to make a joke like her father loved to do.
Spike put a fake but convincing shocked face on for his little girl.
"Oh my! She says... She says..." Spike got closer and closer to Linn causing the girl to giggle louder. "She says she wants..." He got right in her face. "CHOCOLATE!" With that he began to tickle the little girl mercifully. She giggled and screeched while Spike tickled her.
After a moment he sat her back down when he heard the microwave beep. "No chocolate, Linny. But we do have bacon and sausage." Spike chuckled.
"Oh darn." She said with a snap of her fingers. Spike couldn't help but laugh at his daughter. She was adorable like her mother.
Pulling the mug for him and Linn's pony cup from the microwave, he added a straw to his daughter's cup. "It's hot, love. Be very very careful." Spike said when handing Linn the cup. She nodded her head in response and sat the cup down beside her. It made her stomach growl.
Once breakfast was done, Spike brought Linn into the living room to play on the floor while he went to clean up from breakfast.
"Can we go ou'side and play, daddy?" Linn asked before her father left the room.
"Malin, you know daddy can't go outside in the sun. It will hurt daddy." Spike explained again.
Linn still hadn't grasped the concept that her father couldn't go outside like everyone else and she couldn't be outside in the sun for very long without feeling depleted. If she was out there far longer than she should be, she in turn would also suffer from burns.
"Besides, you know the sun is bad for you too. Now play with your toys for a bit until I'm done in the kitchen." Spike leaned down and kissed his daughter's forehead.
"Yes, sir." Linn sighed in response.
While doing the dishes and cleaning up, Spike wished his daughter could be more normal like her mother but being the daughter of a vampire was bound to have its cons.
Linn burned easily outside. Sunscreen helped a little but it only prolonged the burn process. Even with long sleeves and pants on, she would come inside with her skin being red and itchy.
One day Dawn had Linn outside for far too long. When she brought her in she was near passing out and her skin was very red. It took two days for her to heal completely. In those two days she cried a lot and there was only so much Buffy and Spike could do to comfort her. They gave her cool baths and rubbed lotions on her skin, anything to help ease her pain.
They were all new at this and it was going to take a long time for them to learn the swing of things. Linn was a special child and everyone was going to have to learn.
"Mummy!" Spike could hear Linn's voice from the other room. Buffy must have come down from upstairs.
"Hi, baby." Buffy smiled when she got to the bottom of the steps and Linn ran to her mother, throwing her arms around her waist and hugging her tight.
Buffy picked her daughter up into her arms and kissed her cheeks.
"Have you been good for Daddy?" Buffy asked while walking into the kitchen while holding Linn.
"Oh god, that little girl. She was retched!" Spike pretended to be disgusted.
Linn giggled and Buffy smiled. "No I wasn' daddy! I was good!"
"No seriously she was good." Spike said suddenly in a serious voice. "She was so good I just wanted to eat her up!" Spike said and shifted his face. Surprisingly, that had been something that didn't scare Linn. It only made her giggle harder.
"No daddy! Pu' Mr. Fans away!" Spike had called it "Mr. Fangs." Buffy on the other hand wasn't fond of him being so nonchalant with his vampire side around their daughter.
"Okay!" Spike shifted his face back to normal.
"Now I can kiss you." Buffy smiled. She leaned up on her toes and kissed Spike's lips quickly.
"Eeewwww." Linn scrunched her face up.
"Ew? Ew? Really, Malin?" Buffy asked her daughter.
"That's a'sgusting!" Linn giggled.
"Really? How about I do it to you!" Buffy said before laying kissing all around Linn's face causing her to giggle and move about in Buffy's arms.
"Help me, daddy! Make mummy stop!" Linn said between her fits of giggles.
"Mummy, let the little punky butt down." Spike said while wagging a finger at Buffy.
"Oh alright, daddy." Buffy said, imitating her daughter's accent before putting Linn down on her feet. Spike had done a lot to teach Linn how to talk so the majority of her words had a British accent to them. Buffy thought it made Linn even more adorable than she already was when she didn't believe her cuteness could get any more cute.
"Can I have some more juice, daddy?" Linn asked while tugging on her father's black sweat pants.
"Now now, Malin. No more until lunch." Spike said while continuing to do the dishes.
"Yes, sir." Linn sighed before walking out of the room and going into the other room to play.
Buff walked over to Spike and put an arm around his waist. "How often is she asking now?" Buffy asked.
They had been trying to keep her on a proper human diet and including the synthetic blood with each meal and sometimes it would substitute for a human snack. They were even tracking how often she was asking for it.
"A lot." Spike clicked his tongue on his teeth.
"Okay are we talking every hour or are we talking every other meal?" Buffy further pushed the question all the while reaching across the counter to grab a sliver of bacon.
"I give her some with breakfast and then you give her some with lunch and dinner. She's asking multiple times between meals now." Spike turned to look at Buffy after he shut off the water and dried his hands.
Buffy sighed heavily. "So we're going to need to start ordering more." Buffy said.
Spike nodded. He could see the concern on Buffy's face. "Love she's a growing girl. She's asking for fake blood in a cup not trying to rip someone's throat out." Spike reassured Buffy. He wrapped his arms around her waist.
"I know. I just worry, Spike. What if one day we wake up and she's standing over me or Dawn ready to make a meal out of us?" Buffy was very alarmed and slightly more worried about her daughter than she would admit to anyone aloud.
"That's not going to happen and if it does then we handle it then. Right now, let's just let her be a child. Her life is complicated as it is. Not many children get to play outside when it's dark or sleep till noon when they want. Let's just face one problem at a time, alright?" Spike brought one hand up to Buffy's chin to pull her chin up so she looked him in the eyes. "Alright?"
Buffy sighed and nodded. "Fine."
Spike pulled Buffy's chin gently toward him where he planted a loving and sweet kiss on her lips.
"Now, love. What would you like to eat?"
...TBC...
Author's Note: If you're not following this than I suggest you read the first story to this called 'Midnight Sun'. Also, I wanted this first chapter to reflect on how Buffy and Spike were trying to make things as normal as possible for Linn. After all half-breed or not, she's still a child who had a child's mind. Also I thought it would be cute to show just how Spike is with Linn.