Chapter 6: The Bud of Life and Love
"Ow Bloody Ow!"
Buffy turned to her blanketed boyfriend, as he lurched clumsily through the streets. "Honey, what's wrong?"
"What's wrong? What's wrong? How about the fact that I'm frying like a tater tot under this blanket? Couldn't you have found an appointment later in the day?"
Buffy shot Willow, who was walking steadily next to her, an impish grin. "Sorry honey, but the clinic closes before 5. Doctors don't tend to make a habit of catering to the undead's schedules."
"Well they bloody well should consider it. We're people too, after all."
"People who feed on blood, lack reflections and don't breath," Willow observed.
"Hey! I don't question your lifestyle, do I?" Spike raised a scarred eyebrow.
Suddenly, a guy stumbled into Spike, grunting unfeelingly. Incensed, Spike shot daggers at him. "Watch where you're going, pissant."
The guy blinked and gazed at the swaddled Spike. "Uh . . . s-sorry," he murmured in a tone entirely unapologetic. Spike caught him regarding the blanket with a queer expression, so he sneered, wrapping the blanket around him tighter.
"What are you looking at? Can't a fella take a stroll without garnering dirty stares?"
The young man looked utterly confused as the hard-faced Brit with obvious blanket-security issues glared at him. "Hey dude, I said I was sorry."
"Yeah well, did it ever occur to you that maybe I have a condition? Maybe I need this ruddy blanket to ward against skin cancer? You ever think a that?"
The man softened instantly. "Oh . . . man, s-sorry I didn't know . . ."
"Well there you go. So maybe you should bloody use your head before going about insulting critical cancer patients. Now get lost you wanker, before I rip you a new one."
The man turned awkwardly and practically flew away with speed, leaving Buffy, Willow and a self-satisfied Spike standing on the sidewalk.
"Cancer, Spike? That was a masterful show of real class." Buffy put her hands on her hips and gave her boyfriend a reprimanding frown.
"Well the chuffer had to learn what real respect is. You see the evil-eye action he was giving me?"
Buffy cocked her head. "Poor Spikey, did the big bad man look at you the wrong way? However shall you restore your manhood?"
Willow stared at the man's retreating figure. " Well I think it's safe to say that you scared him good, cancer or not."
Spike brightened under the blanket. "Really? You think so?" Maybe he was regaining that whole scourge-of-Europe persona yet. "I mean . . . hell yeah I scared the blighter. Like I said, I've always been bad." Before he could straighten up and assert his manly masculinity, he suddenly yelped with a cry of pain. "Balls! The blanket has a bloody hole in it! Buffy, didn't you mend it like I told you to?"
Buffy shrugged unsympathetically. "Must have slipped my mind. But hey----" she began to giggle spontaneously. "At least now we can say you're truly a hunk a hunk o' burning man!" Flying into a fit of laughter, she realized her bad joke was lost on both Willow and Spike as they both stared at her stoically.
Spike shook his head, disgusted. "That was possibly the worst thing I've ever heard. Your punnage is going down the tubes, pet. I'm nearly ashamed to call you my Slayer."
"Your Slayer? Excuse me, but I'm strictly a free-lance demon hunter. The Chosen One belongs to no one." She straightened with an air of independence.
He responded by curling his mouth into a puppy-like pout, his blue eyes twinkling precariously, melting Buffy's heart immediately. "And here I was, thinking I was your lord and master."
Buffy went over to her boyfriend, smiling softly. "I wouldn't have it any other way," she whispered before leaning into the blanket and indulging in a kiss that was hidden from all view. Soon, she was oblivious to all the curious passerbys as she and Spike stood for several minutes under the gray blanket with only the sound of smacking lips giving insight into what they were doing.
"We're here," Willow interrupted, glad to bring a momentary lull to the couple-y banter. Relieved, she opened the door to enter the Sunnydale Center for Women and Children's Heath, leaving the still-engaged couple to trail behind. Lately, she felt increasingly uncomfortable around Spike and Buffy. They had a tendency to bounce back and forth from snippety to----well, nauseatingly cute. She was getting tired of enduring their little love-fests. No one ever felt more like a third wheel then when they were in Buffy and Spike's simperingly love-infested presence.
In the waiting room, Willow seated herself into a hard vinyl chair while Buffy got the much softer seat of Spike's lap. Trying to drown out the noise of Spike and Buffy whispering and giggling at each other like puckish schoolchildren, Willow grabbed the nearest magazine and pretended to absorb herself into it. Sports Illustrated could seem almost interesting when one was trying to avoid the sickly sight of massive cuddling.
Finally, a nurse entered the waiting room and called out, "Willow Rosenburg", prompting Spike and Buffy to reluctantly break apart and follow Willow back into the examination room. The nurse directed Willow to seat herself on the table while Buffy sat by her, grasping her hand. She suddenly felt nervous.
"Buffy, I'm nervous," Willow whimpered, holding one hand around Buffy's, the other around her stomach.
Puzzled, Buffy searched her friend's eyes with concern. "Nervous? What, Willow, why?"
Willow gazed at her best friend to tell her the truth, but the hopeful light that shined in Buffy's face forced her to hesitate. How was she supposed to tell her that she was nervous because this----being in a doctor's office, waiting for a sonogram----this made it real. And she didn't want it to be real. She didn't what admission that this child really existed. After all, what was this child, other than a testament to the hideous mistakes Willow had made last year? It was like getting drunkenly knocked up by some nameless frat guy, but a million times worse. This child was the consequence of all the actions and ugliness Willow struggled to forget. She didn't need the constant reminder. It might have been conceived of Spike and Buffy's love, but it was equally conceived out of Willow's hate and vengeance. How was she supposed to tell Buffy that?
"I'm not big on sonograms," Willow instead lied. "I have an irrational fear of that thingy they use. With the gel and the . . . ugh, I'm always afraid it'll feeling like a branding iron."
Buffy laughed. "Come on Willow, you know better than that. This is a painless procedure, just calm down and relax. Things are gonna be okay."
Willow nodded, reclining further onto the table with a sigh. Her relaxing days were over when she made the choice to put her hand into a magic text and suck up all the dregs of the blackest energy it contained. A passing assurance that "things would be okay" was feebly insignificant compared to the world of "not okay" that Willow felt.
Dr. Karen Mercer finally entered the room, gazing down at a folder seriously. "Well Willow, it's nice to see you again," she murmured, scratching away at a piece of paper very absently-doctor like.
"Hey Dr. Mercer," Willow replied weakly, still grasping her stomach.
"I hope you're feeling fine today and-----oh." Looking up, she was startled to see a pair of blondes, one female holding tightly onto Willow, the male shuffling darkly in the corner. "Umm . . . hello . . ." The 'hello' was said in a tone that obviously pressed for introductions. "I'm guessing you're both with Willow."
"That's right," the blonde girl rushed to say, as if she was being tested on every answer she uttered. "We're with Willow."
Dr. Mercer raised her glasses and surveyed Spike and Buffy carefully. "Umm, and you are?"
Spike held the tattered blanket at his feet and for a moment looked blank. "I'm uh . . . the father of the child."
The glasses fell back onto the bridge of Dr. Mercer's nose. "The father?" She looked from Willow to Spike in surprise. Somehow she hadn't imagined that Willow Rosenburg, one who was currently donning a "You're So A-pealing" monkey shirt, would have found a suitor in this sharp and angular British man clad entirely in black. He was the very blonde incarnation of Sid Vicious and there was a glint of something almost yellow in his blue eyes that unsettled Dr. Mercer. "Well . . ." Dr. Mercer's voice trailed off in vague perplexity. "It's nice to meet you . . . " The upward hilt of pitch at the end of the sentence indicated that she wished for a name.
"Spike," supplied Spike.
This got better and better. "Spike. Uh . . . Spike . . .?" She waited for the surname.
He shook his head. "Nuffin' else. Just Spike. Like . . . just Cher. Without all the campy connotations."
"Well . . . Mr. Spike. Umm, I'm glad to see you here. Willow had expressed some concern about being alone in this situation, I'm happy to see that you're giving support as her partner."
Spike widened his eyes. "Oh . . . I'm not her partner, we aren't . . . y'know together. We're just friends . . . sort of." He turned to Willow on the examining table. "You'd call us friends, wouldn't you Red?"
Willow shrugged. "I'd call us friends-worthy. Barring the one time you held me hostage and tried to kill me, that is."
Dr. Mercer pushed the glasses back up her nose in utter bewilderment. But a lot of the couples that waltzed into here were rather unconventional (ranging from college students who barely knew each others' names to couples who still disputed the biological linkage of the child in wild brawls right in the middle of the clinic), so she let it slide. Turning to Buffy, she asked, "And you are?"
"Buffy. Summers. Buffy Summers, that's me." The girl looked positively euphoric, so much so that she couldn't form a sentence properly. "I'm Spike's girlfriend."
Dr. Mercer was beginning to feel the need for a chair. "Girlfriend?" The glasses slid back down the nose. "I . . . I don't mean to pry, but . . . you're all right with this?"
Buffy brightened as if she had stolen Willow's requisite maternal glow. "All right? More like ecstatic!"
Finding a chair and sinking into heavily, Dr. Mercer sat astounded. "Ecstatic?" she whispered dumbfoundly.
"Sure! I mean, Willow is my best friend! Why wouldn't I be happy?"
Dr. Mercer could think of plenty of reasons why this girl (who it seemed, was either insane or perennially dizty) shouldn't be happy, but she held her tongue. "I . . . certainly can't think of a reason," she lied. She gave the incestuous three another eyebrow-raised look, then went off to start the procedure.
"Oh my god," Buffy breathed, peering at the cloudy screen of black and white streaks with consuming awe. "I-it's beautiful!" Her throat was choked with sudden tears as she felt a stirring of tenderness beat painfully within her breast. The three-inch figure on the screen, a clump of white against black, looked like a masterpiece to Buffy, a Da Vinci etching of a cherubic infant. She bit her lip, unable to contain the wave of affection she felt for the kidney bean shaped image.
"It is?" Willow asked, trying to see the screen from the uncomfortable position on the table. At first she thought she wouldn't want to see it, but now the temptation was overwhelming.
"Yeah, I can't see it neither," murmured Spike, furrowing his brow with intense concentration as if he was trying to figure out a Magic Eye picture.
"It's right here," Dr. Mercer instructed, pointing one figure at the clump. Smiling, she added, "And it's looking completely healthy for an eleven-week old."
Buffy sighed blissfully, then looked up at Dr. Mercer. "Do you think we can determine the sex this early?"
Dr. Mercer shifted thoughtfully. "Generally it's a little too early to tell, but we do have advanced technology nowadays. The sex of the child is clearly developed in this stage of pregnancy. It would just be a matter of whether you wanted to know or not---"
"We want to know!" Buffy exploded, bouncing up and down in her chair. "We definitely want to know, don't we honey?" She turned to Spike who was still trying to decipher the sonogram puzzle.
Dr. Mercer cleared her throat. "I think that's more of a decision that Willow and Spike have to make."
That sent Buffy's mood plummeting. "Willow and Spike"? It was a three-way parentage, not two. She made them sound like an actual pair, a typical couple, anxiously awaiting parenthood together. She felt like yelling at Dr. Mercer, "It's my damn child too!" but she immediately saw how that would make the kind of sense that didn't. So she grit her teeth and sat back in her chair with a scowling pout.
"Bloody hell, I see it!" Spike's features went alight with a smile as he finally caught sight of the miracle child. It was wiggling slightly in the muddy picture, but there it was, clear as day. Cuddled, breathing, alive. It was the most amazing sight Spike had ever seen. "I-It's . . . it's . . ." he didn't want to say beautiful, he wasn't as instantly intoxicated with the child as Buffy had been. It didn't much look like anything really, it was more alien-like in appearance with its slight eyes and tiny, minuscule limbs. The sight was more . . . surreal. Yes, that's what it was. Surreal because it was the very bud of life, something that had a plethora of feelings, thoughts and experiences awaiting him or her in the years to come. And he had helped create it. He helped create a person that would walk around and inhale the air and smile in the sunlight and feel happy or sad. Spike helped create this, a person that had been indoctrinated with the idea that nothing good or real would ever come from him. It was more than he could handle. So he just sat there, staring at the screen with a funny, quiet grin on his face.
"I still can't see it!" Willow protested. "Why can't I see it?!"
Dr. Mercer patted Willow soothingly. "It's all right, it's common for mothers to be antsy their first sonogram. Here it is." Leading Willow's finger to the screen, she once again pointed to the little blob. And so Willow finally caught sight of Spike and Buffy's child.
And suddenly, all the resentment, all the anger, all the fear that the thought of this child had incurred was gone. Vanished. Dissipated immediately. In its place was a flood of love and longing and amazement. It was so little, and it was breathing and sighing and existing within her. A mini-human. A child. It was solely dependent on the life force Willow was offering it. It needed her. She felt needed. She forgot what how pleasantly warm and full that emotion felt.
Her body and mind, up to this moment, had been long empty of any infatuating passion. The person who used to fill that place within her had been destroyed, and with her, the capacity to ever have that place filled up again seemed depleted. But it was restored, overwhelmingly so, when Willow gazed upon the sonogram screen. But she hadn't realized it just then. There was still too much hurt and broken pieces to fix before Willow could admit to ever feeling love on that sacred level again. So like Spike, she remained quiet.
"Look, you can see the child's defined features right . . . there. You see them? The nose, the mouth . . . look, there are the fingers. . . ." Dr. Mercer directed Willow and Spike about the screen, and the two huddled together around it to catch a better view. Buffy had to back away slightly as they had to find room to study the screen.
"Oh goddess, those are the fingers," Willow whispered, breaking into a smile.
"Cor, I've never seen anything so tiny," Spike mumbled with the same wondering air. He leaned over Willow's shoulder to grin at the screen even more widely. Buffy felt pricked and suddenly goaded at the sight of such intimacy and jealousy raged within her. But she caught herself once more and tried softening into sympathy. She knew it wasn't Willow's fault that this was happening---it was no one's fault. She should love her best friend like she always did, especially now that she was carrying her child. So how come she felt an immense amount of un-love for her at the moment? The bud of life had begun to grow and in consequence, the seed of jealousy had been planted.
