A/N: Continued distressing aspects.

The slayer and her watcher had been on the phone for a good half an hour before Giles had suggested any actions Buffy should take in her situation.

"Have you asked Spike if he knows anything about how you could conceive?"

Buffy genuinely thought he was trying to be funny for a moment.

"It doesn't matter how it happened, only how we can get rid of it. No way is Spike going to find out."

"If Spike knows something, that might help us figure out how we can deal with this."

Giles really wasn't understanding her point. "You can prod and poke me with needles, force feed me any number of pills and send me to some clinic in the middle of nowhere. But Spike never hears a word of this. Surely your precious council know something about this."

Buffy really didn't need to hear the sigh that followed, on the other end of the line.

"I can tell you now, Buffy, that there has never been a case in history where a vampire has impregnated a human."

"Uh, Giles?" Buffy started, a little creeped out. "Less with the weird, cringey vocab. No one wants to be told that they've been...impregnated."

She swore she heard him polish his glasses then.

"The council insist that you allow a medical professional, to return with me, and examine you."

Buffy's grip tightened on the phone. "You can tell them to shove their medical professional up their ass! I'm not interested in playing their guinea pig. I want this thing out of me! End of discussion!"

"They want the same thing, Buffy."

The slayer didn't understand his mixed messages.

"If what you're saying is true, they want to study the child. This is a unique situation and we could learn a lot from it."

This was way too simple.

"What's the catch? Giles?"

"You need to carry the child to term."

Buffy was speechless. "I can't do that. I won't let this thing use my body to crawl into the world. What if it kills me trying?"

"The council have insisted that it won't come to that. They'll send someone to Sunnydale to observe you, make sure you have everything you need. If anything unusual happens in the third trimester, they'll perform an emergency c-section. They'll get it out of you."

"In the weeks you've been back in England, they've brainwashed you into good, obedient watcher mode, again, haven't they? Exactly like when we first met."

Giles said nothing on that matter and moved swiftly onwards. "They're prepared to strike a deal with you. Give you anything you want."

"How am I going to keep this from Spike for nine months?"

"Travers will deal with Spike."

Buffy took a few minutes to think, even though she was already pretty sure what she was going to say.

"Tell them...Tell them I'll carry this baby but I want them to stick to their word. Anything non-human happens, I want it gone and Spike never knows, even long after it's 're my only terms. I don't want anything else from them."

"Thank you, Buffy. I'll be with you within a day." He hung up. Buffy carelessly snapped the phone shut and let it fall to the floor.

That wasn't her watcher on the phone. Not the Giles she knew. The council had turned him back into something he wasn't. A part of her even wished she hadn't called him but having her own private doctor who knew what to do felt better than going through this on her own. She looked at her stomach in the mirror. "I can't wait until you're a million miles from me."

No matter how annoyed she was with Giles, as soon as he stepped through her door, eighteen hours later, Buffy was in his arms and didn't ever want to leave. Things didn't feel as bad with him around. Soon, though, reality hit when she was introduced to her obstetrician. She was fully trained to deal with normal pregnancies as well as mystical ones. For a member of the council, she was rather friendly. Her hazel eyes, soft strawberry blonde hair, her sweet smile. Very British, of course, but not in an intimidating way. With her, she brought a mini hospital. Bags of instruments, a couple of scary looking machines. Travers really did want this baby.

"Hi, Buffy," she began. "My name's Ana. I know I just got here but I do want to run a couple of tests quickly. Just to get some information. Is that okay?"

Wow. She was REALLY friendly.

"Erm, sure."

Willow had stuck around for moral support and to keep Xander and Dawn away from the house for now. Buffy'd had to come to terms with the fact that she'd have to tell people at some point but she wanted to be more aware of what was going on, herself, first.

Next came the blood tests and the ultrasounds. That wasn't quite as nerve wracking to her anymore.

"Would you like a print of the scan?"

Buffy immediately refused. She was not going to risk getting attached to this child in any way. The next ten minutes involved being told things she already knew when all she really wanted was to find out what was inside her and now it got there. One question that she might not know until the birth and the other, not at all. The thing that bugged her more than anything else, though, was whether Spike did actually know anything about how this was all possible. Having him interfere wasn't worth the risk of asking him, however.

"I think I just want to go to sleep now," Buffy confessed, pulling her shirt back down over her stomach. Ana agreed, before giving her a few do's and dont's. She packed up her equipment before bidding everyone farewell. "I'll check in, in a few weeks. But, Buffy, if you're worried about anything, or have any questions, please call me straight away."

Willow followed the slayer to her room and sat down on the bed next to her. "I think that went okay. Ana seems nice."

Buffy nodded, distantly.

"Listen, maybe having this baby is the best thing. I mean, whatever it is, it's not it's fault. It's just trying to cling on to the life it's been given. It doesn't want to hurt anyone."

Maybe her friend was right. But at the same time, no one could assume it meant no harm.

"Why can't I just have something normal in my life, Will?"

The Wicca began to stroke her hair. "Because only normal and normal attract. You're not normal. You're extraordinary, Buffy."

The slayer now felt the time was right to cry and once again fell into Willow's lap, weeping more than she ever had before. A few days ago, she didn't think her life could get any worse. She thought she was at her lowest point, working days and nights at the Doublemeat and having unemotional, degrading sex with her arch enemy. How wrong she'd been. The slayer would almost give anything to go back to that now. Even if her baby was human, it would only make everything worse. She couldn't win either way.

Willow did all she could to comfort her friend without saying anything else. She knew Buffy had heard too many words today...