Buffy watched while a huge grin broke over Maggie's face, as she looked up at Spike. "Daddy?" she questioned, searching his face for an answer.

Spike stood there for just a beat, wondering where Maggie had come up with such a complex question with a single word. Then he looked over at Buffy, and realized that one way or the other, she must have told Maggie.

Just a few seconds ago, Buffy had felt that everything was moving too fast, as if the world had started spinning out of control. Now, after hearing little Maggie actually call Spike "Daddy", she felt like an eternity was passing by; time had seemed to stand still while Buffy and Maggie waited for Spike's reaction. Buffy wondered if all this was normal, this feeling that time was lurching between fast and slow, or if this was just some horrible trick being played on her by the Powers that Be, to watch her squirm after yet another occurrence of open-mouth-insert-foot syndrome. Suddenly all the time lurching that Buffy thought she was feeling made her very sick to her stomach, yet she still sat there and watched Spike and Maggie as one might watch a horrible train wreck on the six o'clock news.

Maggie was starting to look more worried than excited; her huge smile was slowly fading to an adorable pout. Spike reached down and picked her up, hugging her tightly as she said it again, pulling back to look straight into his eyes. "Daddy?" This time it was almost a whisper.

"Yeah, Baby?" Spike smiled at her, watching as the grin returned to Maggie's face. She threw her arms around his neck and held on for dear life. Buffy finally looked up at him, trying to gauge the emotion behind his crystal blue eyes. She knew that they probably had a lot more explaining to do, but for right now there was no way she was going to interrupt this moment between Spike and Maggie.

Her eyes filled up with tears again as Spike motioned for her to come to him, and when she reached his side he let one arm wrap securely around her, holding both her and Maggie close to him. And he thought that this was the moment he'd been waiting for his whole existence. To be standing there, holding his girls, and feeling a love so powerful that nothing could destroy it. Oh yes, there was more explaining to be done, but for now, they were all happy, and none of them wanted to break the enchantment of the moment.

+ + + + +

Of course, enchantment can only last so long. Just as Buffy was starting to feel safe again in Spike's arms, and starting to be happy that her family might really be together, the back door flew open. Xander breezed in, just as he always had, more or less acting like he belonged in Buffy's kitchen.

"Hey Buff! Just wanted to come and check on my favorite little… WHOA!" Little Alex was following closely behind his father, and bumped right into him when Xander came to a sudden stop in front of the island. Alex rubbed his forehead while Xander just stood there, moving his mouth but not really finding any words that would come out.

Buffy jumped a little when she heard Xander's voice, but didn't really pull away from Spike or turn to face Xander. "Ugh" she said under her breath, and Spike had to bite his tongue to keep from cracking up right in front of their 'guest'. Finally she turned around. "Xander. I really wasn't expecting to see you today. How's everything going?"

"Uh…um, Spike!" was all he could really come up with.

"Xander." Spike replied, with hardly any tone of friendship.

Maggie watched all the adults, wondering why they were all acting so strange. Of course, she was trying to figure this out in an effort to ignore Alex, who stood nervously beside Xander and stared at her and Spike. "Uncle Xander!" she started, "He came! I told you that my Daddy would come for my party and he did!" she brightly told him.

Xander's face paled even more. "Buffy…you told her?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes, and put on one of Willow's famous 'resolve faces'. "Xander, not now. We," she said as she motioned to herself, Spike, and Maggie, "still have a lot to talk about. When we're done, I'll deal with you." She was a little surprised when Xander backed off, and seemingly dropped the subject.

Alex still stood there, eyes darting between all of the people in the room. Spike put Maggie down and knelt in front of the younger Harris boy. "Hi there. You must be Alex. Maggie told me all about you the other day. I'm her Dad, but you can call me Spike." Maggie stood behind Spike during this encounter and stuck her tongue out at Alex, thinking that Spike didn't know what she was doing.

"That's a funny name." Alex replied, wanting so badly to reach out and grab Maggie's tongue and make her wish she'd never stuck it out at him.

"Yeah, I suppose it is," Spike said with a slight chuckle, thinking like father like son… Without even turning to look at her, Spike said "Maggie, stop sticking your tongue out at him." She looked shocked that Spike had known what she was doing, but stopped nonetheless. "Now, Little Bit, don't you have something you want to say to Alex?" he asked her.

"No." came her simple reply.

Spike turned around to face Maggie, but Buffy interrupted before he could say anything to her. "Maggie, I do believe that we talked about this, and there is something you need to say to him."

"No." she said again, crossing her little arms defiantly over her chest.

"Margaret Anne…" Buffy started, but Spike intervened before she could get too upset. "Margaret, you know what you did wasn't right, don't you?" he asked her.

She nodded, and finally gave into her parents' demands; a bit worried that they had both used her whole name. "I'm sorry that I said not nice things to you the other day Alex, and I'm sorry that you pushed me down. And I'm sorry if you got into trouble because of me."

"Okay." Alex told her.

"Uh, pet… there's something else." Spike prodded her.

Maggie looked thoroughly disappointed, and whispered "I'm sorry I bit you."

"A little louder," Spike told her.

Maggie sighed loudly, and looked right at Alex. "I'm sorry that I bit you the other day. My  Mommy and my Daddy say that it's not nice to bite people, and that I shouldn't do it."

Alex nodded. Xander giggled. Buffy and Spike looked up at him as if he'd grown another head, for laughing while Maggie apologized to Alex. "What?" he said between giggles, "It's kinda funny… Spike telling Maggie not to bite people."

Buffy just rolled her eyes and knew that while Xander had done a lot of growing up over the last five years that some things would never change. "Well, Buff, we just came by to check on Maggie… make sure she hadn't pulled any more runaway attempts. We should go now, looks like you were just in the middle of something when we got here."

"Yeah, Xander, we were. Thanks. I'll talk to you later." Buffy said, as she opened the back door for them to leave. Xander smiled at her on his way out the door, and Buffy could have sworn he tossed a grin over her shoulder to Spike as well.

When the door closed, Spike said "Well, that was interesting."

"Yeah, it sure was…" Buffy agreed.

+ + + +

Maggie sat at the table, happily munching away at her lunch. Buffy and Spike stood at the island, watching her and talking quietly. "She seems to be taking all of this rather well," Buffy said.

"Yeah, she does. But pet, care to tell me how she found out? I thought we were going to tell her later."

Buffy explained to him about how she'd let the cat out of the bag while making lunch.  She was still obviously upset about how she'd let it slip out like that, but inside she was relieved that Spike had reacted so calmly. He assured her that there was really no other way for him to react… they'd talked about telling her, and Spike was glad that Maggie finally knew the truth.

"You know, Love, I really think that letting it slip like that was probably for the best." Spike tried to reassure Buffy.

"How you do mean?"

"Well, Buffy, think about it. If we had sat down with her to tell her, she probably would have been scared to death. I mean, we were both a little worried about it, and she's bound to pick up on that. She's a very perceptive child, Buffy. We would have ended up being way too serious and she might have thought she was in trouble or something. This way, it just sort of happened all natural like, and she didn't have to face some scary serious conversation with us. And, it let the focus be on her, instead of all the stress we were feeling."

Buffy smiled. "There you go making a lot of sense again." She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, and sighed when he wrapped his arms around her.

"Hey." Maggie said, and interrupted their moment.

"Yeah, Bit?" Spike asked.

Buffy grinned, because she knew what was coming. She knew that Maggie was about to start firing questions at them, much like she'd done to Spike on the first day he was there and she demanded he tell her all about England. However, Buffy never anticipated that the first question out of her child's mouth would be the one she both dreaded and longed to know the answer to.

"You don't have to leave us again, do you Daddy? Will you promise to stay forever?" She had such sincerity in her question, and Spike recognized the hope twinkling in her eyes. It was the same hope he'd carried for years; all the time that he was falling deeper and deeper in love with Buffy.

Buffy held her breath waiting for Spike to answer, and seriously hoped that she wasn't about to start feeling that crazy time-shifty thing again. Spike wasted no time in answering Maggie's question, and he held Buffy a little tighter as he spoke. "No, Bit, I don't have to leave you. I'm going to stay here, as long as your Mommy wants me to stay. I missed your first 4 birthday parties, I don't intend to miss anymore." He told her, before turning his attention to Buffy. "That is, if that's ok with you, Love."

Buffy nodded as her eyes misted over again. "You've got to stop saying things to make me cry, Spike. I don't think I've cried this many happy tears in all my life." She said, before he leaned in to kiss her. Buffy pulled back after a moment, and Spike looked disappointed. "Maggie's right there…"she whispered.

"Right then." Spike said with a smirk. "We'll pick this up later, yes?"

"You can bet on it." Buffy said, countering his smirk with a wink.

"Hello?" Maggie called, waving her little hands back and forth. "I still wanna know…." She trailed off as she skipped into the living room, beckoning Buffy and Spike to follow her. Buffy knew that this round of questions from her was going to last awhile, but she didn't really care. She and Spike had all the time in the world to spend with their daughter, and she wanted to make the most of it.

+ + + +

Note: Ok, that's all for this weekend L  I'm going out of town and won't have computer access. Stay tuned though for Maggie's birthday party, and some catching up between Spike and Dawn and the rest of the Scooby gang!