CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dr. Hemphill told Buffy that she might do certain things on impulse during her pregnancy, and Buffy has warned her housemates about this. But nothing at all could prepare Spike and Dawn for what she does at the beginning of March.
She has been out all afternoon and Dawn and Spike were beginning to ask themselves where the hell she was. But when they see her, they know. And it's so shocking to them that for many minutes they can't say a single thing.
"Do you like it?" she asks, hopefully.
"It's all gone!" Dawn says, putting a hand to the up-turned locks of hair an inch over her sister's shoulders.
"It's different," Spike says. Her golden hair…
"But do you like it?" she asks.
"It's all gone!" Dawn says again
"It's not all gone. It's not like I went out and got a Jean Luc Picard special," Buffy says. But she sees Spike and Dawn's disapproval. This was a mistake. Oh God…what was she thinking? "You hate it."
"No," Spike says. "It will just take some getting used to."
And still, all Dawn can say is, "It's all gone!"
Spike elbows Dawn. "You still look beautiful," Spike offers.
"No I don't! Not only am I getting fat…now I'm ugly too!"
Buffy and Dawn watch her, helplessly, as she disappears into a fit of tears into her room. They hear her crying. They hear her realizing what she has done. And it wasn't a bad move, as impetuous as it was. She is still lovely Buffy, if somewhat shorn.
Spike tries the door. "Buffy?"
"Go away!" she says with a sob.
"Sweetheart, you know I can break this door down."
"And you know I can stake you! Go away!"
Spike backs away from the door as though his fingertips are about to caress fire.
"She's lost her mind," Dawn says.
"No, she's just exercising her right to be hormonal," Spike says.
"How long do you think this will last?"
Spike shrugs. "It's anyone's guess." Her golden hair…
"I remember when she used to get mad at me for borrowing her stuff. Mom always intervened, because if she didn't, Buffy would just stay mad at me for, like weeks. This one time, Buffy accused me of having her blue sweater. God, she basically tore me a new one over that. I didn't even have the damn thing!"
Spike remembers the sweater, stretched over the mannequin torso in his crypt and then over Harmony's more ample form. He remembers touching the fibers, smelling her scent. Overwhelming. And now, her crying behind the door. More potent than the scent, more hurtful than her cold stare when he bound he in chains and begged her to love him.
"So, what are we going to do? Just wait it out?" Dawn asks.
"I don't know. I'll think of something."
"Eee…eee…eee?"
Spike snorts. "I think if I tried to get near her at this point, I'd be the one shouting eee…eee…eee and not in a good way."
Anya flits around the Magic Box with a feather duster in hand. It's three o'clock in the afternoon, the slow time for the shop. Actually, the whole day has been a slow time. She has helped three customers, two of which were bald men looking for herbal treatments for hair loss. She couldn't help them in that area, but was able to direct them to the pharmacy across the street to buy some Rogaine, on sale for $11.99.
Giles has been pouring over volume after volume of ancient text for the better part of the day. For the past few weeks, he has been dedicated to his research, completely neglecting his customer service duties in favor of note-taking and fact checking. This work is something Anya has not been privy too. Whenever she asks what he's working on, his reply is always vague. "Oh, the usual. Demons and such. We are living on a Hellmouth, you know." She senses his annoyance whenever her time to lean, time to clean busy work encroaches on his research. He always slams his book shut and walks over to the tea kettle to refill his cup. His tea intake in the past weeks has increased to ten cuppas a day, way beyond the Englishman's standard per diem of three. Most days he arrives looking worn and haggard, as though he has slept in his clothes or hasn't slept at all. She figures he needs the extra caffeine to keep him going.
Anya turns up the volume on the radio. Only one more hour until "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio. Noah Adams is promising an informative and heart-warming story on an Appalachian family marketing an apple butter that has caught on nationally.
Yes, indeed. It's a slow day.
Anya drifts over to the section of books least perused by the public. These are the more advanced spell books, the ones with the big words that Wiccans may buy just for the street cred, but never actually use.
"Is Buffy coming in today?" Anya asks.
"No," Giles says, still scribbling at the table.
"Strange," Anya says. "She hasn't been here for weeks."
"Anya, I told you, she has been ill." Once again he remembers Buffy's pleading eyes. "Let's this be our secret for a while. Until we find out what this is we're dealing with," she asked him. He nods again to her in his head.
"She's been sick for a while. What is it? Fever again?"
"No."
"Influenza?"
"No, not the flu."
"Small pox? Oooh! I've heard that's making a comeback. You know, that used to wipe out entire villages when I was a Vengeance Demon. A lot of times, I'd be summoned to exact revenge on someone only to find him stone cold dead in his house and supper still on the table. I got a lot of free meals that way."
"It's not smallpox," Giles replies.
"Most of the time, it was terrible food. Cold English food was the worst. The stuff they put into pies and call a meal." Anya shudders at the memory.
"Anya, please," Giles begs, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Of course. Bad memories of yucky food. Good thing you're in the United States of America now where food is actually edible, if somewhat artery clogging and genetically altered." Anya moves her duster over the figurines gathered in a haphazard display between the spellbooks and the encyclopedias of demonology. "Has Buffy been to a doctor?" Anya asks.
"Yes, she has."
"And what did the doctor say?"
Something I'm not permitted to tell you just now, Giles answers in his head. "That she needs to rest," he tells her.
"She has seemed a little tense lately. Maybe she just needs to have her clit licked."
Giles slams a hand down on his books. "Anya!"
"A very viable cure and a very pleasurable one as well. I know after I've had a bad week, a good clit lick is all I need to put me back on my feet."
"And I would kill for a blowjob after working an eight hour day with you, but this is not the time or place to discuss such matters!" Giles explodes. And even as he hears himself utter the word blowjob, he still can't believe that he was angry enough to say it.
"Oh, a blowjob! Have you considered hiring one of those women who work by the shipyards? Some of them are actually attractive and they need the money, judging by the way they dress."
"Anya, as much as I'd love to sit here and talk about the finer points of oral gratification and prostitution, I do have work to do. So if you could just go about what you're doing, I shall continue bandying about my books. All right?"
"Fine," Anya says, continuing to dust. "But just for the record, this has been the most enlightening conversation we've ever had."
"Well, I'm glad something good came out of my elevated blood pressure and total embarrassment."
Later that evening, Buffy is lying on her bed, her face pressed deep into her pillow as she listens to David Gray's Babylon, played low on her stereo. She hears a knock at the door and instinctively mutters, "Go away!" once again.
She hears the knock again and sits up against the headboard. "I mean it! Go away!"
"Oh, but please, Goldilocks!" Spike says in a cartoonish voice on the other side of the door.
"Spike, I don't---
"Not Spike. Baaaybeee Bear."
"OK, Baaaybeee Bear. Leave me alone!"
"Take pity, Goldilocks. Someone has eaten all my porridge and I'm oh so hungry! And some sod has sat in my chair and it's all broken to bits! And now someone is sleeping in my bed and she's still there!"
Buffy allows a smile to slip onto her face.
"Come in, Baby Bear," she says, feeling like a trucker talking over a CB radio.
The door opens, just a sliver. A furry paw wedges its way into the small space. She watches as an oversized teddy bear struts into the room, her puppeteer of a lover maneuvering the bear's limbs to simulate walking.
She has to genuinely laugh at the spectacle before her, because it's just so silly and so…Spike. The things he will do to say he's sorry. Sometimes she just wants to tell him to stop acting like one of Glory's toadying minions. He has her now. They're expecting a baby together, for God's sake.
The bear hops up onto the bed, rubbing Buffy's cheek with his paw. "Goldilocks, why are you sleeping in my bed?" The "bear" asks.
"Because it's comfy and warm and it's away from things," she says.
"Na uh uh," the "bear" scolds, tickling her nose with the tip of his paw. "What does Goldilocks say?"
She strokes a loving hand over the face of the bear. "Because it's just right," she replies, embracing both Baby Bear and Big Bad, encircling her arms around the fractured fairy tale that is her life.
Spike leaps over her, landing squarely on his side of the bed, teddy bear still in hand. Buffy possessively acquires the stuffed toy, bouncing it on her lap.
"Is this for me or for the baby?" she asks.
"All for you, sweetheart," he says, kissing her cheek and pulling her towards him.
"So there are some things I don't have to give up because of the baby?"
"There are some things," Spike answers. He scoots an inquisitive hand through her shortened hair, still loving the texture, the scent. It's all there, just abbreviated.
They kiss for a long time, their mouths so fascinated by the brush of lips and tongues, time goes by and clothes are tossed.
Down to skivvies, Buffy finally thinks to ask, "Where is Dawn?"
"At the library," Spike murmurs over her lips.
"God bless the Dewy Decimal system," Buffy says blissfully.
And the dead man spends the rest of the evening buried in the once and future love of his life.
Dr. Hemphill emerges from Buffy's elevated thighs, sloughing off her latex gloves and tossing them into the nearby trash bin. "OK. You can close up shop now. I'm done."
Buffy sits up anxiously, removing her feet from the stirrups and sliding her legs over the side of the examination table.
"Is everything OK?" she asks.
"Yep. You're doing very well. You may not feel like it now, but your pregnancy is completely normal. How's the morning sickness?"
"Still with me."
"The saltines and ginger ale aren't working out?"
"Yeah, they're working out. Usually into the trashcan or the commode if I can make it."
"That's rough, I know. With my first pregnancy, I felt like I was constantly in that space simulator NASA calls the Vomit Comet. Anyway, the first trimester doesn't last forever. But if you can't keep anything down at all, I can give you some medication for the nausea, especially if you're getting dehydrated."
"That's good to know."
After hearing this good report, Buffy is still concerned. There is something she needs to tell her doctor, but something she feels she cannot verbalize. How does one go about asking, "Is my baby evil? Will my baby signal the end of the world? Are there meds for that?"
Dr. Hemphill must recognize Buffy's consternation because now she is soothing a hand down Buffy's forearm.
"Buffy, is there something wrong?" she asks.
"No. Just first time pregnancy jitters," Buffy answers with a brave face.
"I remember what you told me. About the father… not being around."
"Are you kidding? He's around me all the time! He can't keep his hands off me most days," Buffy says with a laugh.
Dr. Hemphill's shoulders sag in confusion. "But you told me the baby's father was dead."
She did tell Dr. Hemphill that the father was dead. And he is.
"Oh! Well…what I meant was that the father was dead to me. We were having a fight, but the baby kinda brought us back together."
"Well, that's good. And he's ready to be a parent?"
More ready than I am, Buffy thinks. "Yeah. He's very supportive. But what I was wondering, um, about the baby. Is it normal?"
Dr. Hemphill shrinks back from Buffy's query. "As normal as we can tell at this stage. Are there certain genetic strains in your family that you're worried about?"
"Well, no. It's just that…" The father is dead. She has only known about the existence of a fetal heartbeat through her lover's ear. Would he lie? No. No! No? "Does the baby have a heartbeat?"
"Yes. Very strong and very fast."
"And a soul?"
"Well, of course. We're all born with souls. Some people just forget they have them."
"Some people lose their souls," Buffy says in a faraway whisper. "But they get them back."
"Yeah, when they're descending into hell and they're not the martyrs some guy living in a cave promised they would be," Dr. Hemphill laughs. "But anyway, it's not my business to pass judgment on some terrorists gunning for approval by their god. All I can say is, yes, your baby has a heartbeat and a soul and you're a strong and healthy young woman. At this point, there is not reason why you shouldn't be able to deliver a perfectly normal child."
"There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to deliver a perfectly normal child," Giles says, ragged and bed-headed, the hush puppy rings under his eyes nearly looping towards the lines around his mouth.
"Are you sure? I mean, you've read everything?" Buffy asks.
"I've read everything from the original Watcher's journal, in Arabic, by the way, to the latest issue of Parents Magazine." Giles removes his glasses and massages his throbbing temples. "There is nothing to indicate anything is imminent except for the birth of your baby."
Buffy and Spike cheer silently, exhaling breaths and clutching hands.
"So this is a miracle?" Buffy asks.
"It appears so," Giles says. Even in the aftermath of his immersion in every text ever written about enceinte Slayers and end of the world prophecies, he still cannot believe that the very alive girl and the very dead man beside her are going to have a child together.
"Ha ha!" Spike declares elatedly. "Uncap your Mont Blanc and turn a fresh page in your journal, Rupert." He cups Buffy's jaw in his hand and strokes her cheek. "Buffy and I are writing a new chapter in Slayer lore. I came to Sunnydale to sire the Slayer. And she sired me instead."
"Oh, honey!" she says, her eyes spilling over with tears, hearing the bizarre Hallmark greeting of his words. "You know how I get these days!"
Giles wants to turn away from their passionate embrace, but he can't. He has to see how much they love each other, how much they want this child. As much as he has been defying Spike as a suitable suitor for his charge, he knows, in some ways, he is the person she needs. Just enough of her own darkness tempered with humanity. The way they smile and the way they blend together, like two halves of a gloomy heart becoming one. They are love. They are worked for, killed for, bled for love. And sometimes when he looks at them he can only shake his head and wonder, but lately he's been thinking more positive things, such as, "This is right. They are good together. They will have this child and will be a family and their happiness will be complete."
But he can't let them off without a warning. There is the rejoinder that he is finding hard to voice in the display of their togetherness, but he thinks that they know, deep in their love-laden hearts.
"Buffy," he says gravely, "just because there is no precedence doesn't mean that...What I mean is, the child might be---
"Giles, stop, OK?" Buffy begs. "This baby is human. Heart and soul. I can sense when things are evil. I feel it in my gut. And this child inside of me is not evil. I feel like I've been given a wonderful gift, something that I'm not supposed to have." She lowers her eyes and as she does, she sees the tears shimmering in the lower rims of her eyelids. When she lifts her head again, a droplet falls, slipping down her cheek and landing with a splat on her sweater. "This is what I want." She says soulfully as she holds Spike fast, his blond head finding a comforting rest on her left shoulder. "I just turned twenty-one. I'm young, I know. But for a Slayer…I mean, the clock is ticking. There might not be a time in the future for this. It's happening now because, obviously, something or someone has chosen this to be the right time. And, honest to God, I've never been happier."
And Giles knows that what's she's saying is true. He only hopes that it will stay true.
Dawn flips open her laptop computer and switches it on. She sips at her Diet Coke as she waits out the one or two minutes it takes before she is able to click on the Internet Explorer button and log on.
Almost immediately after her Yahoo Messenger window appears, she is slammed with an IM from Travis.
t-dawg: Hey sweetie!
iamthekey: Hey baby!
t-dawg: Whatcha doing?
iamthekey: Just watching Spike and Buffy canoodle on the sofa. They're watching Entertainment Tonight, but they keep talking to each other in this should-be-outlawed baby talk. lol
t-dawg: lmao
iamthekey: But I'm really weirded out now. And not just because of what I'm watching.
t-dawg: Oh? What's wrong?
iamthekey: Nothing's wrong. At least not yet.
t-dawg: Dawn, you're scaring me. What's up?
iamthekey: Well, I guess it's safe to tell you now. Everyone else knows.
iamthekey: Buffy is pregnant :O
The cursor blinks on the IM so long that Dawn begins to think that Travis has been booted.
iamthekey: Travis, are you there?
t-dawg: Yeah, I'm here.
iamthekey: Where'd you go?
t-dawg: Nowhere.
iamthekey: I can't believe my sister is going to have a baby. That's just too fucked up, you know? I'm being aunted and I'm not even sixteen years old!
t-dawg: lol
iamthekey: And she's so insanely happy about it. It's like having a different sister. She was literally going around the house singing like she was in a musical or something. Way scary.
t-dawg: lol. Listen, I'd better go. I still have to read that chapter Mr. Morin assigned.
iamthekey: Yeah, me too. Expect a quiz on the New Deal.
t-dawg: lol
iamthekey: I'll talk to you tomorrow.
t-dawg: OK, Dawn.
iamthekey: *hugs*
t-dawg: *hugs*
Travis sits for many minutes, his Yahoo Messenger window still on his computer screen, an IM from Eric Daniels displayed, awaiting a response. "Hey, T-Dawg! Wassup?" He scrolls down, putting himself on invis and leans back heavily on the back of his chair as he sips at his Coke.
His mother barges into the room, uninvited, as she always does.
"What are you doing?" she asks, emptying his wastepaper basket for about the seventh time this day. "And Travis? A coaster?" she urges, noting the sweating Coke can on Travis' desk.
"Oh, sorry," Travis apologizes as he places his Coke on his mousepad. "I was just talking to Dawn."
Samantha Singleton nods as she scrapes out the torn scraps of paper from Travis's trashcan. She suddenly takes interest in a jagged piece of paper that she's about to be pickup for the garbage man. "What's this?" She begins to eagerly dig through what she has just dispensed into the garbage bag. When fitted together, the pieces form a letter from Harvard, begging for a campus visit. "Why didn't you show this to us?" she finally manages after reading the letter.
Because I knew it would mean another fight, Travis thinks. "It was addressed to me," Travis tells his mother.
"But, Travis! Harvard wants to you come for a visit! That's your dream! And here you are literally just throwing it away!"
"No, Mom, that's your dream. Have you ever, even once, heard me say anything about wanting to go to Harvard?"
"Travis, when a school like Harvard seeks you out, you don't run and hide. Do you know how rare it is to get a letter like this? At your age?"
"Mom, here's the thing. I just got into high school. College is the last thing on my mind."
"Well, it shouldn't be. Honestly, I don't know where your mind is these days." She crosses her arms as an evil gleam lights her gray eyes. "Actually, I do know where your mind is. It's on that silly little tramp of a girl."
"She's not a tramp, Mom."
"How could she not be? Living the way she does under the example of her sister who whores herself out to vampires."
"Mom, stop it!"
"The three of them living together under one roof in that house of sin and filth. I would pray for their souls, but one of them doesn't have one. Are those really the kind of people you want to be associated with?"
Suddenly a bell sounds from Travis' computer and an IM appears on the screen. It's from Dawn. He finds his hands paralyzed as his eyes freeze on the screen and he realizes his mother is reading right along with him.
iamthekey: I know you're offline, but Spike and Buffy are now not only doing the baby talk thing, they're also talking baby names. Spike actually wants to name the baby Hogan Verizon! lmao!
Recovering his manual dexterity, Travis quickly exits out of the window. His hand slips away slowly from the mouse, streaking the top with a smear of sweat. He cannot look at his mother's face. He is too afraid of what he will find there.
"The Slayer is pregnant?" Mrs. Singleton says slowly.
"Uh, actually, no---
"Wait, wait, wait…The Slayer is pregnant?"
A blush reddens Travis' complexion and he aims his stare at his shoes. He feels his heart sink to his waist and sickness seizes his stomach.
"Travis, if the Slayer is pregnant…Travis, do you know what this means? Do you have any idea what this means to us? To all of us? It means were all saved!" His mother slams her hands together in a thunderous clap of victory. "'The Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior.' As many times as I have read that and heard it from the pulpit, it all just seemed like some distant dream. But it's happening! It's finally happening!" She rakes her long, lithe through her sons unruly hair before giving his shoulders a rough massage. "Oh, Travis! This is wonderful! We don't have to die! None of us has to die!"
For a sliver of a second, with his mothers hands kneading the skin over his tense shoulders, Travis wishes he were dead. He wishes he didn't have to hear the cheer in his mother's voice over the vileness of the events that have been set in motion with the announcement of the Slayer's child. He imagines across town, Buffy and Spike are curled up on the couch, running through a list of names in their head for their precious dream child. He can almost see the wide grins on their faces and the playful slaps they give each other as names are spoken aloud and soundly rejected. Little Joshua. Little Ben. Little Sally. Little Lucy. Little Suzie. Little doomed baby who doesn't have a chance and doesn't have a clue what's awaiting him when he is plucked from his mother's womb…
"Oh, who should I tell first?" Travis's mother ponders as she drifts in a reverie towards the door, hands clasped, eyes skyward. "Reverend Estey, certainly. Stanley. Mr. Chapman. Phyllis. No, not Phyllis. She won the blue at the last garden club for that awful arrangement of eucalyptus and iris. She can wait. Oh, Lord! I feel like a million pound weight has been lifted from my shoulders!"
Even after his mother leaves him, Travis still feels the blood on her hands seeping through the fabric of his shirt, cooling his skin. And he knows that if he looks close enough, he can see that his own hands are glazed with blood as well.
"Mom, isn't there some other way?" he asks quietly.
"His mother blinks back at him, incredulity clouding her features. "Travis, don't you think that if there were some other way…? We don't…none of us wants…" Samantha Singleton purses her lips and finally says, "'The Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior.'"