Title: A child shall lead them

Disclaimer: I own nada

Summary: After the events described in Deconstructing Hell Faith tries to deal with the biggest challenge of her life. You should read DH first.

Rating: Teen

Chapter 10: The beginning of the end

The bar was seedy, rough, and loud, just the way Faith liked her bars. Xander, however, looked terribly out of place, like a yokel, or a hick, or a good person.

She hated making him feel uneasy.

She climbed into his lap when they sat down in the booth, grinning lasciviously. It made him a little more uncomfortable, but it certainly distracted him. "So, what's the deal, Spike?"

Spike sat down in other side of the booth, between Illyria and Dana. "Well, there's a mental image I didn't need. Thanks, love."

"I said, what's the deal?" She didn't have the patience to deal with Spike's snarks right now. Especially if he was going to be mean to Xander. She could get very unhappy with people who were mean to Xander. She took it personally. Even if he was her friend, or something like it; it still made her mad.

Spike grinned, a nasty grin. "Well, you know the details, I'd imagine. Angel is going nuts for some good blood. Your blood, specifically. Few control issues. Somebody likes that, and may even have planned it. Oh, and your pregnancy is an epic thing that may bring about the end of the world."

"Oh. And you have a plan?"

"Yeah."

Illyria sighed, tossing her hair. "By 'plan' he means he wants to stay by your side and protect you throughout your pregnancy." She was apparently just as impatient with Spike's attempts at secrecy.

"Hey, I'm a Slayer! I don't need protecting!"

Dana was examining Spike's hair but stopped when Faith said that, turning to face the other Slayer. "It'll make him feel better. And Illyria and I can help out if anything big happens."

Faith was slightly mollified by her words, and her sincere tone, but was bothered by that. After all, this was the crazy Slayer, wasn't it? "Since when are you the voice of reason?"

Dana shrugged. "I try."

Spike grinned, pulling her into a one-armed hug. She tensed up a little bit, but put her arm around his neck. Xander made a slight gagging noise. Faith, for her part, just grinned like a predator and leaned on the table, putting her elbows down. "Aw, is ickle Spikey in wuv?"

Spike scowled at her. "Those sitting on glass Xander-laps shouldn't throw stones."

She tried to think of some way to make a dirty pun out of that, but was stumped for just a second, long enough for Xander to clear his throat and change the topic of conversation to something a little lighter. "So, prophecies are saying, what, end of the world? How's my bun in the oven supposed to do that?"

Spike shrugged, which usually meant he was about to lie like a rug. "Well, the prophets are notoriously short on details. In this particular case there's more than a passing mention of Slayer powers, but I suspect that it's more than that. Especially in light of the baby's mother having been present during a spell that empowered all the Potential Slayers in the world."

Dana winced. "I don't like that spell."

Faith gave her a funny look, but Xander pressed on. "So the baby might have the power of a million Slayers?"

"Or the essence of Red, just for fun. Besides that, there was a ton of black First-magic floating around. And eyepatch-boy, for all his normality, has been exposed to quite a bit of magic over the years. Spirit-melding, body-tampering, brain-tampering, even a bit of getting kicked around by Red, if my memory serves."

"Ouch. Yeah."

"So between the two of you the baby is inheriting a very, very hard to track pile of possible power sources, and most of them are dark, dark, dark. I have my people working on researching the whole thing… although it's probably not going to be very positive, whatever the outcome."

Illyria finally stirred, glaring at Dana. "That's not nice."

"It's true!" protested Dana.

Faith raised an eyebrow. "What was that? What's not nice, but true?"

Spike sighed. "They share a deep psychic bond now, giving Dana access to Illyria's powers. And they pass snarky comments around on the sly, never letting us blokes in."

That wasn't how Faith remembered things. In fact, to the best of her memory it had been Spike who had shared that fundamental bond with the hell-goddess, Spike who had been able to keep her from turning evil again. "Don't you do that?"

"Not any more."

Faith stared at them, her forehead wrinkling. There was something about what he had just said that seemed dangerous, ill-timed, and stupid. But she was having trouble putting her finger on it. It was probably part of the insanity that he had gone through with the other Slayers, but she didn't want to open that Pandora's box, didn't want to hear all that.

And Xander changed the subject again before she could figure it out. He was too busy being concerned with the bigger picture instead of focusing on what was going on in their friends' lives. "So you're here. I thought you had a plan to help Angel."

"Yeah, I put that into effect about four years ago," said Spike, checking his watch. "So, no worries. Oh, by the way, Harmony joined the ranks of the souled vampires last week." He dropped that bomb into the conversation so casually it took Faith a moment to understand what he was saying, to connect the bubble-headed blond and the word soul.

"What? Doesn't that blow Angel's Champion thing to pieces?"

"Not so much. He fulfilled the Cup of Perpetual Torment thing when he went to hell the second time. He's vested, now. Although there's this whole thing with your daughter he still has to keep from branching… but, really, that's a problem for another day."

"Why?" asked Faith, feeling a little tense. She didn't like discussing vampires and souls. She didn't like prophecies. And she especially didn't like how casual Spike was about all of it, as if he was discussing something no more important than their plans for dinner. This was important stuff.

"Why is that a problem for another day? Well, because we have some more immediate threats to Angel popping up that I'm trying to track down."

"No, I mean why did Harmony get a soul. She was all, yay, good guy, no soul." Which made Faith very uncomfortable. Despite Spike's relative goodness now, she understood that even chipped he had been pretty bad with no soul. Even trying to rape Buffy. So she didn't really believe the chips were very effective.

"Well, there was this whole thing where she drank my blood and enjoyed it and realized that eventually she's going to betray me because without a soul she's not capable of truly being on my side. Which, it turns out, was really an epiphany Angel was trying to pound into her. So we dropped a soul in, and she got her brood on. Well, not really. She was busy at that point organizing my latest acquisition and setting up our shady conspiracy to tranq Angel up and try to keep him away from you."

"That's your plan for dealing with Angel?" Faith nearly went up over the table as the anger kicked in. Spike might be a friend, but she was well used to dealing with a group of friends who all hated each other, and she was going to take Angel's side over Spike's, every time.

"No, relax." He didn't even tense up as she moved to attack him, but Dana did, tensing in a very protective way that made Faith back right down. She might hit a vampire or a vampires-turned-human, even the occasional human, but she never hit her fellow Slayers any more. That just led to badness. "That's my backup plan. Plan B, if you will. That's just in place in case Connor can't talk him down. Which is Plan A. I would have gone and done it myself, except I really would have tried to get him to blow a fuse just so I could see them tranq him… hilarious… and I wanted to be here."

"Oh."

Spike smiled, and this one was a smile without his usual malice. "Well, it was actually Harmony who said I couldn't be the one to talk him down. She wanted to try and bring him in without shooting him. She's soft that way."

Dana poked him in the ribs, and he squirmed.

"Aw, they're a cute couple," said Xander sarcastically.

Faith poked him in the ribs. Even if she had a firm policy about people being mean to Xander, she liked it even less when he was mean. And so she took any actions necessary to nip any mean or bitter actions in the bud.

Even if that meant hitting him a little bit.

Harmony heard the noises start again upstairs and sighed. "Vampires and werewolves. That is so nineties."

"Actually, that movie first came out in the year oh-three," grumbled her companion.

"What?"

"Oh, never mind." Connor was more than used to everything he said floating over Harmony's head; he wasn't even going to try and explain anything to her any more. Not if he didn't have to. Instead he tried to concentrate on the stuff in Nina's desk that he was rifling through.

Harmony smiled at Connor. "So, this must be weird for you. Your dad up there having loud and noisy sex. Does it give you a complex?"

"Eh, it's not too bad."

"Huh?"

"Consider that in our short history he's had to watch me have sex with the woman he loved, and I had to… no, I guess that's it. The squick factor pretty much balances out eventually."

"Er… sure."

Connor rolled a stake over his knuckles, making it dance. "Besides, I can't really let him leave without talking to him." Nina didn't have anything remotely interesting in her files. Just piles and piles of stuff. That he was desperately going through his father's girlfriend's things looking for clues was a sign of how desperate he was getting. He hoped Spike knew more than he was letting on, this time. Things were starting to look scary.

Harmony smirked. "Right. Talking. With your fists."

"Um, no, that's plan B. I still plan to just talk to him."

"With tranquilizer darts."

"No, with…ah, forget it."

Xander had strong, strong objections to having Spike and his 'harem' along, which just amused Spike while making Faith angry, frustrated, and a little bit sad.

Illyria didn't mind the word harem, but Dana had issues with the inclusiveness. Because even though Illyria and Spike shared a deep, strong bond, Dana thought she had something stronger and deeper.

And Spike, overall, was acting pretty well drunk by the time they left the bar. Although Xander suspected that might be a put-on, since he hadn't ordered more than one beer that Xander had seen.

All these combined with the closed quarters of the RV to make for a very tense night.

Faith lay on top of the covers on the bed beside Xander, just staring at the ceiling. Xander was lying on his side, facing away from her, stewing.

She hated it when they argued. It wasn't even like the makeup sex was any good. What with all the crying and general moodiness.

Xander sighed. "Spike's banging a new Slayer. He's either going back to evil, or about to get his heart torn out. This is really like being in heaven. I can't decide which one would be more fun."

"Spike's a normal human now, just like you. Play nice."

"I don't play nice with Spike."

She didn't want to answer that. "Do you think I'll make a good mom?"

He sighed. "I just knew that would come up eventually, after the crying was all done."

"Hey."

He rolled over to face her and draped one arm over her stomach. "Faith, I don't know if you noticed, but the only good mother I ever knew was Buffy's mom."

"Me too."

"Good, gives us a common frame of reference. Now, do you think you could possibly try to be as good a mom as her? Because that would probably be the best job anybody could possibly do. I'll get you some WWJD bracelets. What would Joyce do, right? And if you fall short, just remember, we both had screwed up parents, and we ended up okay, right? So, at worst, we screw the kid up and they have an interesting life fighting demons."

"Oh."

"Unless, you know, we turn them evil and they destroy the world. That would suck."

"Yeah." Faith let out a long, ragged sigh. "And, yes, I am really worried about turning her evil. I turned evil!"

"So did Buffy, Angel, Spike, Willow, and even Harmony. There's just no cure for the evil, Faith. Good parents, bad parents, indifferent parents. Doesn't matter. People gotta have their evil."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So, just try to love the kid, nurture her, and treat her like a human being."

"Her? Since when is the kid a her?"

"Well, since I decided, of course. I made a command decision, being the man of the house. And if she goes against my decision, she pays the standard price."

"Huh?"

"The doctor will spank her when she's born."

"Oh. Uh…"

"Or him."

"Right."

"So, total punishment for disobeying the man of the house."

"Gonna spank me?"

"Um… have you been a naughty girl?"

Spike was trying to ignore the noises Faith and Xander were making, but when she started making girlish squealing noises he rolled his eyes and hopped up off the floor and headed out of the RV, grabbing his cell phone as he got out the door.

Dana and Illyria had both already left the RV and they were sitting on the ground a short distance away, staring up at the moon. He swaggered over and sat down behind them, opening the cell phone. "Hey, girls."

Dana smiled over her shoulder, but Illyria was icily silent. He dialed Connor's number, having to pause and think about it for a minute. He listened to the phone dialing and wished desperately that he still smoked.

"This is Connor." He sounded tinny and faint, and Spike smirked.

"Hey, kid. It's Spike."

"Spike. This is such a good time for a phone conversation."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. You made contact with Faith?"

"Yeah. You made contact with Angel?"

"Sort of. Harmony saw him, briefly, while I was going through his stuff."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So, it looks like somebody planted a tracking device on him and has been monitoring his movements. Oh, and I found traces of blood on his clothes."

"Blood?"

"Human blood, yeah. He's been being naughty."

"Yeah. I haven't heard back from Giles, and I left that wide open. Obviously things went sour."

"Yeah."

"I have an inkling where the apocalypse cult is hiding out. Tell him to check out the address I gave you earlier—hopefully they're still there."

"Okay."

Spike grimaced. "Take care." He closed the phone, sliding it into his pocket.

Dana leaned back against his knees. "That bad?"

"If the kid can't talk Angel down we're going to have the metaphorical rain of fire on our hands here. And that apocalypse cult is only getting started. Angel's not ready to go head to head with them--it's too soon for the nuclear option. And I doubt we're going to be able to protect Faith once this all gets started, not unless she really starts cooperating with us and protecting herself. Which means we're screwed."

Dana sighed. "Pretend that it's a good day?"

He grinned. "Okay. We're gonna win because we're good guys, and that's what we do. Anybody want to hear a bedtime story about the Scourge of Europe? I figure, as we're going to be seeing him back again before too long, might as well get to know the enemy."

Illyria sighed. "I served Angel once, but I never really knew him. Monster or man. It's almost easier to deal with the Scourge."

"Yeah… not really. Angelus is one nasty bugger. And buggering crazy, to boot."

Dana frowned. "Didn't you make it so that Angelus couldn't come out?"

"I made it so he couldn't lose his soul. But the real evil in us can't be hidden by a soul… it's not the panacea some people think it is. And if things go bad, it won't keep the demon down."

Angel woke up full of hot, warm blood.

It took him a few seconds to realize what that meant.

Then he started screaming.