Title: Delivery (New Life- pt 20)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, please
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing.
Summary: It's the big moment. But do things ever come off without a hitch?
Delivery
Buffy clutched the bed sheets with white knuckles, screaming. The pain was almost constant now, tearing at her, consuming her. She wanted him there. She was afraid. But Willow had said it would put them all in danger. The magic was dancing around them. A silvery white circle of little sparkly lights frolicking around the bed. Supposed to keep them safe. Tara was speaking quietly to Buffy, but Buffy could hardly hear her over the pain.
Suddenly, Buffy felt it all starting. Her eyes widened in fear and she lost her tenuous grip on coherent thought. "Where's Spike?" she panted to Tara. "Tara, help me!" She was crying now. Sobbing. "Where's Spike? Shouldn't he be here? Tara, something's happening. Something's wrong." She felt as if a huge wave crashed over her, crushing her, and she felt the baby moving.
"I know, Buffy," Tara cooed, trying not to alarm her. Trying not to betray her own feelings and admit that her own heart was racing and terrible little alarms chimed in her skull. She thought she could see the baby now. Willow chanted loudly, still lost in her protection spell. Tara thought fast, shaking off her own fear. "This baby, Buffy, this baby is a miracle. This...Buffy, we have to protect her. We don't know. No one has ever delivered a child like this. We have no idea what will happen." Just keep talking, Tara thought. Keep focused. "We are just trying to protect...."
Tara's words were interrupted by an ear splitting howl and Buffy's entire body shuddering and sliding towards her.
*****
"This way," Giles said, opening the door and ushering the nurse inside. She was older, Earthy. Very calm. Nothing at all like Spike was feeling after hearing that last sound. He was on his feet, hopping over the coffee table. "Spike, stay with Dawn. There's nothing we can do yet." Giles commanded, stopping Spike at the foot of the stairs.
"No, bloody...No," Spike argued, starting to push past Giles.
"Spike, *please*," Dawn cried, sobbing, wrapped in a little ball on the
couch.
"You'll go mad sitting outside the door, Spike. Stay here where you can at least be useful," Giles reprimanded, beginning up the stairs with the nurse in tow.
Must have a congenital weakness for Summers women, Spike thought, plopping back down on the couch next to the shaking teen. "Come on then, Nibs, we'll be useless and panicked together." Dawn crawled into the crook of his arm, sobbing into his shirt.
"Think I'll go make some tea," Anya said, clapping her hands and prancing off toward the kitchen.
*****
Giles delivered the nurse to the door, then backed well away. Just as her hand touched the knob, an awful howl pierced the air. Giles dropped down the wall, sliding to the floor. He noticed Xander crouched much the same way in the doorway to the baby's room. The noise made everything stop. Breathing. Heartbeats. Time. The world was standing still.
"Buffy?" Giles heard heavy footsteps downstairs and Spike's panicked voice calling, coming closer.
"Spike, *stay* there!" Giles demanded. There is no way I can handle this, Giles thought. Can't bear to loose Buffy. Can't handle Spike if he lost her. Whatever Spike would do, kill or cry, might not differ with him much.
*****
"Oh God, Buffy," Tara gasped. "Buffy, stay with me. Buffy...." Tara's
heart was jumping out of her chest. Buffy's eyes were fluttering, rolling back, her screaming replaced by rasping breaths. Wasn't Giles supposed to get help?
Tara heard the knob turn. It felt like that one, simple, circular motion, took a lifetime to complete. Buffy was gasping and clawing the bed, tears streaming down her now silent cheeks. Open the damn door and help us, Tara thought.
Finally, the door creaked open and quickly shut again. Tara was scooted out of the way, crawling up by Buffy's side, the nurse now at the foot of the bed.
None of them remembered much from there. Buffy whimpered then roared and her body contorted, every muscle firing at once and she fell silent against Willow's legs. Willow went silent and collapsed behind Buffy, her head knocking against the headboard. Tara's head spun in confusion, and she felt as if she had gone deaf and mute. The lights were gone. Only the lamp on the table glowed. It was a deep, warm yellow.
"Help me," the nurse whispered quietly to Tara, reaching out and touching Tara's hand. Tara looked at her startled and saw her holding a little bundled cloth.
"What do I do?"
"Can you take a pulse?"
"Yes."
"Take her's," the nurse said, gesturing at Buffy all the while fussing with the bundle in her arms. Sweeping the child's mouth. Wiping her face. Tara's fingers dropped to Buffy's neck. She didn't want to do it. She didn't want to know. It was easier to think she was asleep. "What do you feel?"
Tara was relieved to find a strong and steady rhythm. "It..it's there, " Tara stuttered. She felt her own neck. "Slower than mine, but not very slow."
A tiny noise came from the nurse's arms. Then a slightly louder one. The nurse smiled down at the baby. "The baby is beautiful," she said. "Pink. Ten fingers, ten toes..."
Tara began to ask about fangs and thought better of it.
"Stay with her," the nurse said in the same quiet, soothing voice. "Let me clean up the baby and then we'll take care of Buffy." She disappeared out of Tara's line of sight. Actually, could have been right in front of her. Tara seemed to have very limited senses right now. She sat, stunned, still checking Buffy, then Willow. Both seemed OK, other than being out cold.
Suddenly, Buffy's eyes shot open as if awaking from a nightmare.
"Buffy?" Tara whispered, rubbing her hand.
"Tara?" she replied quietly. "What happened? Where's my baby?"
"The nurse has her."
"Is she?"
"Fine," Tara said softly, squeezing Buffy's hand. Buffy went slack against the bed. "She's beautiful Buffy. You're a mom!" Tara was grinning ear to ear.
Buffy smiled. "I'm glad," she said so softly that Tara could barely hear her.
*****
It had taken a while to clean them up and rouse Willow. The witch woke up looking all the world like a hungover sorority girl, but she seemed all right. They managed to bundle the baby into clean blankets, administer shots, get Buffy sorted out, cleaned up and into a robe, which proved to be a challenge considering Buffy's body seemed to have the consistency of spaghetti. When Tara finally left the room, the nurse and Willow had propped Buffy up on pillows and given her the little girl. She cried. All of them did. But Tara knew she had to go. She had something still to do.
It was almost surreal walking into the hall. She thought she saw Giles and Xander there, but her head was buzzing and she felt as if she had a
complicated speech committed to memory and if she spoke or thought anything before she spit it out, she might forget. Tara floated to the staircase and began her descent.
*****
Spike sat on the couch, his leg twitching against the table, twirling Dawn's hair between his fingers. She had cried herself out and was asleep with her head pressed against the outside of his thigh. The screaming had stopped. Everything had stopped a long time ago. Seemed like a hundred years.
"Spike?" He looked up from the magazine he had been toying with. Dawn
didn't budge. His arm was draped over the girl as if he were still
comforting her in sleep.
Tara was standing at the foot of the stairs. Spike gently disentangled
himself from Dawn and walked over to the landing. It was so very silent.
"Is she?" he whispered. He was terrified she had not made it. That
neither of him had made it. It shouldn't be this quiet.
Tara reached out to him and touched his hand. He could feel the sting in the back of his eyes as the tears pushed against them, begging to come out. They were dead. He knew they were. Tara smiled at him softly, abandoning her long speech. "It's a girl," she said taking Spike's hand and pulling him up the stairs toward the bedroom. Relief and a new kind of fear washed over him as he walked behind Tara. But good fear. Excitement fear.
Xander was standing outside the door, pressed against the door jam. Giles was sitting like a rag doll against the opposite wall. It wasn't right that anyone else went in before Spike. Xander glared at the Vampire briefly, but let them pass without incident.
"Tara, wait," Spike said, just before her hand reached the doorknob. "Does she even...want.. to see me?"
Tara smiled reassuringly. "She has been asking for you."
Spike stepped into the moonlit room. Buffy was lying there, so tiny and
weak. Willow was sitting in a chair next to the bed, stroking the top of the child's head as Buffy held her in her arms. The nurse was leaned
against the windowsill, a pleased, motherly smile on her round cheeks.
It was so surreal to Spike. This was never supposed to happen. And he
never thought he could be so moved. For whatever reason, he thought he
would break down into sobs. The part of him that was human made this. And all of him would love and protect them.
Willow got up from the chair and took Tara's hand. As they left, Spike
turned to them. "Thank you," he said, at an unusual loss for words. Both women smiled softly and left the room. The nurse began to collect her things, leaving only a clipboard out of her bag. Spike barely noticed the woman anymore. All he could see was Buffy and the girl.
He sat down next to her on the bed. She did not talk, but she looked up
from the baby at Spike. Her face was soft. No more anger. No more
confusion. She had found her reason to live. He rested his hand on her
arm, stroking it gently, staring down at her child. Their child. The tiny blue eyed girl in Buffy's arms that had fought everything to be here. Just like her parents. Fighters.
Buffy's eyes were exhausted and teary. Spike touched her face with his hand and she closed her eyes, drinking him in. Slowly, wordlessly, she handed the baby to him and watched him take her so gently, so carefully. Spike stared at the little girl with the same love with which he looked at Buffy. He was no longer a monster. He had not been for a very long time.
"You did well, Pet," Spike said, looking down at the child, then back to
Buffy. He could hardly fight back his own emotion. Buffy watched him in awe. His face was a canvas painted with every expression at once. "What are you going to call her?"
Buffy looked at Spike a moment. Losing herself in those beautiful blue
eyes. "What was your mother's name, William?"
Spike stared at her, his head cocked, amazed at what she was thinking. His face was so soft and so sweet that she thought her heart might burst. "Emma," he said, swallowing.
"Emma Joyce," Buffy said touching his arm. "I like Summers," she said, "But the baby does have a father. I just don't happen to know his last name." She smiled, a sly grin playing on her lips. He couldn't help but be infected by it.
"Windsor," he said, looking down at the baby again, leaning in and pressing his lips against her impossibly soft forehead.
The nurse grabbed the last of her things and nodded softly at Buffy. She left the room wordlessly.
"Spike?" Buffy whispered.
"Yeah," he said, his voice starting to choke.
"I know this is going to be hard for all of us. But I want you to know that I do love you."
He was silent for a long moment. Slowly, he placed the baby back into the crook of her arm and stretched out next to her, burying his face in her hair, his arm wrapping around them both. "I know," he whispered, his voice finally breaking. A century of emotional escaping. " I do love you," he said softly. She closed her eyes and felt him there and for the first time, felt peace.
To be contd.
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, please
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing.
Summary: It's the big moment. But do things ever come off without a hitch?
Delivery
Buffy clutched the bed sheets with white knuckles, screaming. The pain was almost constant now, tearing at her, consuming her. She wanted him there. She was afraid. But Willow had said it would put them all in danger. The magic was dancing around them. A silvery white circle of little sparkly lights frolicking around the bed. Supposed to keep them safe. Tara was speaking quietly to Buffy, but Buffy could hardly hear her over the pain.
Suddenly, Buffy felt it all starting. Her eyes widened in fear and she lost her tenuous grip on coherent thought. "Where's Spike?" she panted to Tara. "Tara, help me!" She was crying now. Sobbing. "Where's Spike? Shouldn't he be here? Tara, something's happening. Something's wrong." She felt as if a huge wave crashed over her, crushing her, and she felt the baby moving.
"I know, Buffy," Tara cooed, trying not to alarm her. Trying not to betray her own feelings and admit that her own heart was racing and terrible little alarms chimed in her skull. She thought she could see the baby now. Willow chanted loudly, still lost in her protection spell. Tara thought fast, shaking off her own fear. "This baby, Buffy, this baby is a miracle. This...Buffy, we have to protect her. We don't know. No one has ever delivered a child like this. We have no idea what will happen." Just keep talking, Tara thought. Keep focused. "We are just trying to protect...."
Tara's words were interrupted by an ear splitting howl and Buffy's entire body shuddering and sliding towards her.
*****
"This way," Giles said, opening the door and ushering the nurse inside. She was older, Earthy. Very calm. Nothing at all like Spike was feeling after hearing that last sound. He was on his feet, hopping over the coffee table. "Spike, stay with Dawn. There's nothing we can do yet." Giles commanded, stopping Spike at the foot of the stairs.
"No, bloody...No," Spike argued, starting to push past Giles.
"Spike, *please*," Dawn cried, sobbing, wrapped in a little ball on the
couch.
"You'll go mad sitting outside the door, Spike. Stay here where you can at least be useful," Giles reprimanded, beginning up the stairs with the nurse in tow.
Must have a congenital weakness for Summers women, Spike thought, plopping back down on the couch next to the shaking teen. "Come on then, Nibs, we'll be useless and panicked together." Dawn crawled into the crook of his arm, sobbing into his shirt.
"Think I'll go make some tea," Anya said, clapping her hands and prancing off toward the kitchen.
*****
Giles delivered the nurse to the door, then backed well away. Just as her hand touched the knob, an awful howl pierced the air. Giles dropped down the wall, sliding to the floor. He noticed Xander crouched much the same way in the doorway to the baby's room. The noise made everything stop. Breathing. Heartbeats. Time. The world was standing still.
"Buffy?" Giles heard heavy footsteps downstairs and Spike's panicked voice calling, coming closer.
"Spike, *stay* there!" Giles demanded. There is no way I can handle this, Giles thought. Can't bear to loose Buffy. Can't handle Spike if he lost her. Whatever Spike would do, kill or cry, might not differ with him much.
*****
"Oh God, Buffy," Tara gasped. "Buffy, stay with me. Buffy...." Tara's
heart was jumping out of her chest. Buffy's eyes were fluttering, rolling back, her screaming replaced by rasping breaths. Wasn't Giles supposed to get help?
Tara heard the knob turn. It felt like that one, simple, circular motion, took a lifetime to complete. Buffy was gasping and clawing the bed, tears streaming down her now silent cheeks. Open the damn door and help us, Tara thought.
Finally, the door creaked open and quickly shut again. Tara was scooted out of the way, crawling up by Buffy's side, the nurse now at the foot of the bed.
None of them remembered much from there. Buffy whimpered then roared and her body contorted, every muscle firing at once and she fell silent against Willow's legs. Willow went silent and collapsed behind Buffy, her head knocking against the headboard. Tara's head spun in confusion, and she felt as if she had gone deaf and mute. The lights were gone. Only the lamp on the table glowed. It was a deep, warm yellow.
"Help me," the nurse whispered quietly to Tara, reaching out and touching Tara's hand. Tara looked at her startled and saw her holding a little bundled cloth.
"What do I do?"
"Can you take a pulse?"
"Yes."
"Take her's," the nurse said, gesturing at Buffy all the while fussing with the bundle in her arms. Sweeping the child's mouth. Wiping her face. Tara's fingers dropped to Buffy's neck. She didn't want to do it. She didn't want to know. It was easier to think she was asleep. "What do you feel?"
Tara was relieved to find a strong and steady rhythm. "It..it's there, " Tara stuttered. She felt her own neck. "Slower than mine, but not very slow."
A tiny noise came from the nurse's arms. Then a slightly louder one. The nurse smiled down at the baby. "The baby is beautiful," she said. "Pink. Ten fingers, ten toes..."
Tara began to ask about fangs and thought better of it.
"Stay with her," the nurse said in the same quiet, soothing voice. "Let me clean up the baby and then we'll take care of Buffy." She disappeared out of Tara's line of sight. Actually, could have been right in front of her. Tara seemed to have very limited senses right now. She sat, stunned, still checking Buffy, then Willow. Both seemed OK, other than being out cold.
Suddenly, Buffy's eyes shot open as if awaking from a nightmare.
"Buffy?" Tara whispered, rubbing her hand.
"Tara?" she replied quietly. "What happened? Where's my baby?"
"The nurse has her."
"Is she?"
"Fine," Tara said softly, squeezing Buffy's hand. Buffy went slack against the bed. "She's beautiful Buffy. You're a mom!" Tara was grinning ear to ear.
Buffy smiled. "I'm glad," she said so softly that Tara could barely hear her.
*****
It had taken a while to clean them up and rouse Willow. The witch woke up looking all the world like a hungover sorority girl, but she seemed all right. They managed to bundle the baby into clean blankets, administer shots, get Buffy sorted out, cleaned up and into a robe, which proved to be a challenge considering Buffy's body seemed to have the consistency of spaghetti. When Tara finally left the room, the nurse and Willow had propped Buffy up on pillows and given her the little girl. She cried. All of them did. But Tara knew she had to go. She had something still to do.
It was almost surreal walking into the hall. She thought she saw Giles and Xander there, but her head was buzzing and she felt as if she had a
complicated speech committed to memory and if she spoke or thought anything before she spit it out, she might forget. Tara floated to the staircase and began her descent.
*****
Spike sat on the couch, his leg twitching against the table, twirling Dawn's hair between his fingers. She had cried herself out and was asleep with her head pressed against the outside of his thigh. The screaming had stopped. Everything had stopped a long time ago. Seemed like a hundred years.
"Spike?" He looked up from the magazine he had been toying with. Dawn
didn't budge. His arm was draped over the girl as if he were still
comforting her in sleep.
Tara was standing at the foot of the stairs. Spike gently disentangled
himself from Dawn and walked over to the landing. It was so very silent.
"Is she?" he whispered. He was terrified she had not made it. That
neither of him had made it. It shouldn't be this quiet.
Tara reached out to him and touched his hand. He could feel the sting in the back of his eyes as the tears pushed against them, begging to come out. They were dead. He knew they were. Tara smiled at him softly, abandoning her long speech. "It's a girl," she said taking Spike's hand and pulling him up the stairs toward the bedroom. Relief and a new kind of fear washed over him as he walked behind Tara. But good fear. Excitement fear.
Xander was standing outside the door, pressed against the door jam. Giles was sitting like a rag doll against the opposite wall. It wasn't right that anyone else went in before Spike. Xander glared at the Vampire briefly, but let them pass without incident.
"Tara, wait," Spike said, just before her hand reached the doorknob. "Does she even...want.. to see me?"
Tara smiled reassuringly. "She has been asking for you."
Spike stepped into the moonlit room. Buffy was lying there, so tiny and
weak. Willow was sitting in a chair next to the bed, stroking the top of the child's head as Buffy held her in her arms. The nurse was leaned
against the windowsill, a pleased, motherly smile on her round cheeks.
It was so surreal to Spike. This was never supposed to happen. And he
never thought he could be so moved. For whatever reason, he thought he
would break down into sobs. The part of him that was human made this. And all of him would love and protect them.
Willow got up from the chair and took Tara's hand. As they left, Spike
turned to them. "Thank you," he said, at an unusual loss for words. Both women smiled softly and left the room. The nurse began to collect her things, leaving only a clipboard out of her bag. Spike barely noticed the woman anymore. All he could see was Buffy and the girl.
He sat down next to her on the bed. She did not talk, but she looked up
from the baby at Spike. Her face was soft. No more anger. No more
confusion. She had found her reason to live. He rested his hand on her
arm, stroking it gently, staring down at her child. Their child. The tiny blue eyed girl in Buffy's arms that had fought everything to be here. Just like her parents. Fighters.
Buffy's eyes were exhausted and teary. Spike touched her face with his hand and she closed her eyes, drinking him in. Slowly, wordlessly, she handed the baby to him and watched him take her so gently, so carefully. Spike stared at the little girl with the same love with which he looked at Buffy. He was no longer a monster. He had not been for a very long time.
"You did well, Pet," Spike said, looking down at the child, then back to
Buffy. He could hardly fight back his own emotion. Buffy watched him in awe. His face was a canvas painted with every expression at once. "What are you going to call her?"
Buffy looked at Spike a moment. Losing herself in those beautiful blue
eyes. "What was your mother's name, William?"
Spike stared at her, his head cocked, amazed at what she was thinking. His face was so soft and so sweet that she thought her heart might burst. "Emma," he said, swallowing.
"Emma Joyce," Buffy said touching his arm. "I like Summers," she said, "But the baby does have a father. I just don't happen to know his last name." She smiled, a sly grin playing on her lips. He couldn't help but be infected by it.
"Windsor," he said, looking down at the baby again, leaning in and pressing his lips against her impossibly soft forehead.
The nurse grabbed the last of her things and nodded softly at Buffy. She left the room wordlessly.
"Spike?" Buffy whispered.
"Yeah," he said, his voice starting to choke.
"I know this is going to be hard for all of us. But I want you to know that I do love you."
He was silent for a long moment. Slowly, he placed the baby back into the crook of her arm and stretched out next to her, burying his face in her hair, his arm wrapping around them both. "I know," he whispered, his voice finally breaking. A century of emotional escaping. " I do love you," he said softly. She closed her eyes and felt him there and for the first time, felt peace.
To be contd.