Part 8: The Blood Red Snow
She sat Indian style in front of the fireplace, doing her best to untangle the string of lights that had now decided to make a collective ball of knots at her feet. A few days ago, Ekaterina, their neighbor, had dropped by and made a comment about the lack of decoration in their home. Buffy had made a quick excuse about not having any decorations since they hadn't been married for that long, and the woman had come by that afternoon with a whole box of stuff for her to put up.
That was their cover story. They were a married couple who had just moved there for a job. She could kill Spike for letting him talk her into playing along with it, but it did feel better that people didn't look at her like she was some kind of whore when they found out she was pregnant and not married. What happened to all those open minded people on TV who thought it was okay for a woman to have a kid by herself? Apparently they only did excise only TV.
She knew Ekaterina had meant well, but this really was a pain in the butt. Why couldn't the woman at least have her husband untangle these things before letting her borrow them? Yet another one of those great mysteries in life.
Kind of like what happened to Spike account here. By the time they arrived in Prague, she had already been in her seventh month, thanks to the zigzagging they had to do with Lang's people following them, and she knew she wouldn't be able to travel home then. Still, when she was able, she wanted the first flight back to the States. Spike had gone to the bank to withdraw his money, only to find that a good chunk of it was gone. Apparently, the minion he and Dru had left there back in '97 had decided for a little restitution and robbed him blind. There was still enough for them to rent a fairly nice place to live for awhile, but it was going to take more then that to get them home. Really, could her life get any better?
"Ugh!" she groaned loudly when one knot infuriated her as she picked at it. "Stupid lights. Probably don't even work anyway," she muttered before taking a hold of the lights and shaking them. "Come loose, damn you!"
"And you thought I was crazy for swearin' at the telly?" she heard Spike say from behind her. Great, just what she wanted to deal with at that moment.
"You weren't swearing that 'the telly'," she said in a bad mock accent. "You were swearing at those stupid soap opera characters. You do know that they can't hear you, right?"
He smirked at her as he came over and took the lights from her grasp. She sighed in relief when she didn't have to deal with them any more, and went back to the box that was still filled with other decorations.
"Tell me, why I'm sittin' 'ere untanglin' Christmas tree lights? We don't even have a Christmas tree," he said after awhile.
"Ekaterina dropped them off earlier this afternoon," she told him. "You know how she's been dropping by lately. It'd hurt her feelings if we didn't put them up somewhere."
"And of course we don't want to hurt the old birds feelin's," he said sarcastically as he finally got out the knot she was having so much trouble with. He grinned at her in triumph as she glared at him for being able to do something she was unable to and the little comment.
"Just untangle the lights, you ungrateful dead," she answered.
Buffy reached into the box, when she felt her stomach cringe tightly. It felt weird, a lot like cramps or something, so she tried to shake it way from her thought. But it wouldn't go away. It just got worse, a whole lot worse, and very quickly.
She drew in a sharp hard breath and crunched her face up as the pain hit her head on. She had taken some pretty bad blows before, and been near death a time or two, but it was nothing compared to this. As the breath slowly escaped her, she heard herself say, "Ow, ow, ow." Then it finally passed.
"Love?" Spike said from beside her. She had forgotten he was even there.
"I'm fine. I think I've just been sitting like this for to long," she lied as she tried to get herself up, but failed miserably. "A little help?"
He got to his feet and helped to hers.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again. Was that worry in his voice?
Buffy had been so surprised by how gentle and worried his tone had been that it took her a moment to react. "Um, yeah, it's okay. I'm just going to get, um, something to drink from the kitchen."
He searched her face, before he nodded his head. "Alright. You just waddle yourself into the kitchen then."
Her eyes grew wide in anger and surprise. "I do not waddle!" she protested. "I....shift."
"That's waddlin', love," he smirked.
She made a face at him and left as he continued to grin. Why did he always have to be like that? Why couldn't he just be nice for once in his undead life?! But nooo, he has to still make sarcastic remarks even when she looked like she could go into labor at any moment. Stupid, blood sucking, son of a...
She stopped mid-thought when she felt it. Oh, no! Not now! Slowly, she turned and went back to the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and stood there with a slightly surprised look on her face.
"Um, Spike," she said.
He looked up from the lights that he had gone back to working on.
"What? Forget how to work the stove without cursin' at it?"
"No," she said slowly shaking her head. She was only half listening to him as the information processed in her mind. "I think...no, I'm pretty sure..."
She stopped, her mind refusing to believe it and her being unable to push it out of her mouth to make it real.
"What?" he asked, starting to sound really annoyed. "That the kitchen needs to be painted pink? What?"
She looked at him as if for the first time. He was annoyed at her, and that kind of seemed reassuring.
"My water just broke," she said calmly.
******
Dawn sat the table in the middle of the magic shop, her books scattered before her as she tried her best to concentrate on studying for her exam's that started next week. It was hard to do, though, especially this time of year.
Yes, being that Christmas and vacation had something to do with it, but that wasn't everything. Last week had marked the year anniversary since...since Buffy left. It had been a hard on the whole group when the day came.
Giles had closed the shop early and took herself and her mother out for the evening to try and keep their minds off of it. Her dad even called and told him that he was thinking about them and wanted to see how they were doing. Just to get a phone call from the great Hank Summers is something in itself. Tara, Xander, and Anya had gone with them, and the whole thing actually turned into a great tribute to the late great Buffy Summers. All in all, it turned out kind of nice, bringing almost a closer to the whole thing.
The newly married couple had brought even more good news that night when they remembered her sister. Anya, the ex-vengeance demon and the new Mrs. Harris, was pregnant. She was a little over two months, and was going to wait until after the wedding, but she said everyone was so depressed that it looked like they could use some good news. In a way, that helped too. They were celebrating the end of someone else's life, and the beginning of a new one.
Anya was behind the counter, doing her usual thing as she counted out the money the store had made that day from the Holiday sells. She and Xander had been married the weekend before, but their Honeymoon wasn't until after the beginning of the New Year. She had explained that it was busy time, and she just couldn't leave Giles right at that moment, else he probably be curled up in the fetal position in a corner by the time she got back. He had assured her he would be fine, but, once Anya's mind was made up, it was made up.
The bell rang announcing Tara's arrival. She had a thick coat bundled tightly around her small body, and looked like she was half frozen.
"I-I didn't know it got this cold in Sunnydale," she said as she pulled off the jacket and hung it up on the coat rack.
"It usually isn't," Dawn told her as the blonde came to join her at the table. "Don't you remember last Christmas? I had shorts on."
"She's right," Anya piped up. "The last time it was this cold, was my first Christmas here and it snowed. I didn't enjoy that. I liked it being warm."
"It only snowed because Angel was trying to make himself a crispy critter because of the First. The PTB's had to stop it somehow," Dawn told her.
"Well, they could have chosen a warmer way," Anya pouted as she came from behind the counter and went to restocking the shelves.
Dawn rolled her eyes slightly as Tara just smiled her sweet smile.
"Well, that's interesting," Giles said as he came out of the storage room, reading a book he carried in one hand, and carrying a cup of coffee in the other.
"What's that?" Dawn asked. She was glad to have any distraction from school work.
He looked up from the text, as if noticing her presence for the first time. "Oh," he said as he set the cup of coffee on the counter and took the book with both hands. "I was doing some research while we had this time with the demon population being so quiet, and I came across this old prophecy."
"Don't you always," the teen muttered to herself, but no one but Tara heard it. She giggled lowly at Dawn's comment, and the girl decided press on. "I swear, it's like Giles is Prophecy 'R Us guy. I don't know what he'd do if he ever ran out of them."
As Tara really began to laugh, Giles cleared his throat to let Dawn know that he had heard her, and child sunk back in embarrassment. "As I was saying, this prophecy comes from the Codex, the one Angel brought to me in Buffy's first year of slaying. I can't believe I never noticed it before."
"Well, we never really had a slow time before," Dawn pointed out. "I mean, it's always something. The Master, Angelus, the Mayor, Adam, that Glory woman. I mean, I think this is the first year where we haven't had a super bad guy to deal with. Just...vampires, and Faith pretty much has control on them."
"Agreed," Giles said. "Things have appeared to have quieted down since...well."
Since Willow got sucked into who knows where, Dawn added silently. When Glory disappeared, so did all the badness that was plaguing the town since Buffy died. Now that she was gone, Faith, who had gotten paroled soon after, hadn't had much to do but slay vamps. She knew that the girl was getting bore with it, and she wouldn't be surprise if she left soon and just let the Scoobies take over the vampire slayage.
She was the first to speak. "So, what's it say?"
"Pardon?"
"The prophecy, Giles. What's it say?"
"Oh, um,
Seven days before the birth of Love,
When the gods trace their finger across the sky,
The dark angel will come,
And bring death and life to all.
Daughter to the last,
Sister to the first,
The perfect warrior,
With a will of her own.
A light, a darkness,
She is a shadow.
Existing from both,
Living for one.
Her life will not be her own,
She fights for right.
Alone she walks,
Together they stand.
Until the end.
The bitter end.
For she is the angel,
Sent to save us all.
The angel, the dark angel."
The silence returned, as the group took in what he had just read.
"That's about the Slayer, isn't it?" Anya finally spoke up.
"One of them, yes," Giles said. "Which one, I don't know."
"Save us?" Dawn asked quietly. "Save us from what?"
"Once again, I do not know, Dawn. I don't even know when or if this will come to pass. You know how prophecies have a tendency to be....off."
"Yeah," she agreed with a sigh. "I know."
The teen turned her head away from the man and looked out the window. Her eyes widen when she saw what was happening.
"Hey, guys look!" she said as she got out of her seat and headed over to the glass for a better look. The other came and joined her. Falling gently and covering the land with a white sheet, was snow.
******
Panic. That was the first thing he felt when she said those four simple words. That was what he was fighting when he stood there waiting for that blasted taxi to get there. That was what he was going through as they traveled up the slick, snow covered roads towards the hospital. It was ridiculous, really. He was a hundred and twenty year old vampire, and he was panicking. Vampires don't panic, not masters anyway.
At first, when she told him that her water had broken, she looked as if she didn't believe it herself, like it was never supposed to happen. Probably because the moment she said those words, it made things real, this was really happening. She was about to give birth, to his child, and it was happening now. Not later, not even tomorrow, but now.
On the cab ride there, her shocked and even expression had changed over to fright and his familiar panic. The slayer, the woman he had seen stand down Adam, a creature with the power of a god, and the tiny girl who had sent Angelus on a one way ticket to hell, was frighten and panicking. Well, that defiantly wasn't good.
One of them had to be calm, but why did it have to be him? Calm was not something he was good at. He was even worse at keeping someone else calm. But you have to do what you have to do sometimes.
She drew in a hard, sharp, deep breath and scrunched her face up from the pain as she let it out slowly. There was no mistaken the panic there.
"Hey, it'll be alright, Slayer," he told her as calmly as he could, but he didn't know how the tone came out.
"That's easy for you to say," she said through her teeth, angry that he would say such a stupid thing. "You're not the one who feels like your insides are being ripped out slowly."
From the front seat, the cab driver chuckled.
"First kid, hu?" he said in Slavic language.
"Yeah," Spike answered him, but still tried to keep his attention on the slayer.
"Don't worry. My wife and I went though the same thing with our first. Wait until she starts to swear that she's never going to let you touch her again. They all say that about at the ninth or tenth centimeter. They never mean though. Else I wouldn't have five children to prove it."
"Trust me, mate. When she says it, she means it," he told the driver, who chucked again.
"What's he saying?" Buffy asked as she breathed through pain.
"Nothin' important," he told her.
The cab came to a stop in front of the hospital, and he was out of the car before it came to stop, and trying to help her. Standing off to the side where a couple of orderly, who went into action as soon as they saw the very pregnant woman emerge from the cab. They had in her in a wheelchair, pushing her inside before she knew what was happening, as Spike paid the cab driver. He turned to leave when the driver called out to him.
"Oh, Son," reluctantly, he came back to the rolled down window. "If she wants you to hold her hand during this, don't do it."
"Why?" he asked before looking in the back seat. Buffy had grabbed a hold of the cage between the font seat and the back seat and had literally bent the steal. His eyes widen for a moment, then he looked at the driver and said, "Thanks for the warning, mate."
"No problem. And good luck."
******
The men sat across from the hospital's emergency entrance and watched as the cab pulled up, a very pregnant blonde hair girl got out with a man with high cheek bones. A dark hair man brought the binoculars away from his face and glanced over at the man who sat next to him. With a slight nod, the man in the drivers' seat picked up his cell phone and dialed.
"We've got them," he said in a gruff voice.
"Good," the man on the other end answered. "Don't let them out of your sight."
"Yes, Sir," he said as he hung up and the two men and the young woman who sat in the back, got out of the car and headed inside.
******