CHAPTER SIXTEEN

            Spike struts down the darkened hallway to the maternity ward, bearing another bouquet of flowers and good news for Buffy.

            "The nurse is on her way with your wheels and your discharge papers.  I've got the car pulled up at the front---

            He is halted by the frozen expression on Buffy's face as she looks down at their infant, his naked, chubby arms and legs squirming.  Buffy holds the baby's terry cloth sleeper in her hands tentatively, as though she's not quite sure what the next step is. 

Spike watches her take her bottom lip under her teeth several times before he asks, "What's wrong?"

A mist of tears scums her green eyes.  "Oh, Spike.  I'm just so afraid that I'm going to pull his arms out of the socket!"
            "You won't pull his arms out of the socket,"  he says comfortingly. 

"When I was in high school, we had this project.  We all had to take care of these eggs as though they were our children.  A-and I destroyed mine."

"Well, accidents happen."

Buffy shakes her head.  "I did it on purpose.  It was an evil egg.  They were all evil."

Spike has to laugh a little at this.  He wonders what's kept the town fathers from proposing a sign at the city limits reading,  "Welcome to the Hellmouth.  Even our eggs are evil."

"That was high school, love.  A long time ago and many Buffy's past,"  Spike says.   "And this little one isn't evil.  You don't have to worry about that.  He's all that's good in the world."  A smile dances across his glowing face as the newborn curls his tiny fist around his index finger.  "Now, come on.  Let's get him suited up.  He puts his trousers on one leg at a time just like the rest of us, only he needs us to do it for him right now.  So you, very gently, take one leg and put it in the there.  Like so.  And then the other.  Now the arms.  Gently, gently.  And you zip him up and he's all ready to go!"

Having witnessed Spike's careful and caring handiwork in sparing their child from nakedness, Buffy has to say, "Wow.  That was great.  Where did you learn to do that?"

Spike shrugs.  "Dru used to ask me to dress her dolls.  They were all fine bisque porcelain.  Very delicate.  I had to be careful or they would break."  He sees that Buffy seems a little afraid of the information he has just relayed to her.  "Now let us never speak of this again."

"Gladly,"  she says, expelling a deep breath.

Spike lifts his son, mindful of his head, kissing his warm forehead as he ferries him over to the carrier.  Once Daniel is snug in his seat, Spike wraps his arm around Buffy, admiring the lump of flesh and blood that is, against nature, his flesh and blood.

"Come on, Sweetheart,"  he says.  "Let's take our son home."

There is an instant acknowledgement when a newborn is brought into a home that time has no meaning and sleep is just a dream.

Sleep doesn't work anymore.  Sleep is what you get when nothing else is going on.  Buffy, as the Slayer, is somewhat used to this concept, but even so, it shocks her when the veracity of her baby's tropical bird cries caw-caw her from a night's rest at hourly intervals.

On his first night home, the baby, so docile and sweet in sleep and unreadable expressions during the day, comes alive at 9:00 in the evening.  This is fine, with Dawn still studying and Buffy and Spike not even thinking about going to bed.  Buffy simply undoes the buttons on her blouse and allows the infant to feed.  He goes to sleep at her breast and she hopes that she won't hear from him again until the morning.

But the morning comes early.  11:00 pm early.  Just as Buffy is dozing.

She feeds him again, the baby tugging hungrily at her nipple as though he were famished.  He falls asleep again against her breast, and she puts him in the cradle beside her bed.

But at 2:00 in the morning, Daniel is raging again for a sip at her nipple.  She again takes the baby against her breast and as before, he slips back into sleep while nursing.  But then comes 4:00.  And not only is he hungry, but he has a little surprise for his parents in the form of a clump of seedy feces in his diaper.  Buffy removes the soiled diaper and presses it into the Diaper Genie which, on the first day, is almost full.  She has changed Daniel a dozen times and it seems she has fed him twice as much.

She feeds him again and replaces the sleeping infant in the cradle, climbing back into bed for what proves to be a two-hour nap.  At six am, Daniel is awake again and starving, his diaper saturated with both number one and number two.

            Buffy climbs back into bed, exhausted, the morning sun just hinted at behind the blinds.  She hears Dawn's door open.  She buries her head in her pillow and groans as Spike rises.

            "I'll take care of Little Bit,"  he says, pulling his jeans on.

            The second night, Daniel doesn't sleep.  Ever.  Not even for a minute.

            "Daniel, Daniel, Daniel,"  Buffy says against his forehead as she kisses him and tries to mean it, though it's hard at 2:00 in the morning to feel anything but frustration.  She taps a hand against his bottom.  "Come on, sweetie.  I've fed you, I've changed you.  What else do you want?"  The baby lets out another squall of displeasure and Buffy looks to Spike to turn the tide.  "Help?"

            Spike slips out from the covers and takes the baby in his arms, shushing and calming the infant with the rapture of his deep British-accented assuredness.  "Come now, Daniel.  Mummy needs her rest.  She has a very important job, love.  She has to save the world, time and time again.  And that's not as easy as it sounds.  So she needs her rest.  And so does Daddy, because he has to help her.  Yeah, he does."  He kisses the baby gently above his eyebrow and then takes him on a walk-about around the perimeters of the bedroom.

After about a half an hour of marching he decides that a change of scenery might be what the baby needs.

"I think I know what you're problem is.  Same as mine, most likely.  You can't get enough of Mummy,"  Spike theorizes as he carries Daniel into the living room.  He settles down gently on the chair in front of the TV and picks up the remote.  Daniel is still shrieking against his shoulder as Spike surfs through the hodge podge of infomercials and grade-B Mickey Rourke movies that characterize much of late night TV.  "But your Daddy's quite an interesting bloke too.  I've lived a lot of years, have seen a lot of things, I've traveled loads.  Someday when you can actually understand the Queen's English, I'll tell you all about myself.  Well, maybe not all.  But, right now, I think it's about time I introduce you to an old friend of mine named Colonel Hogan.  You were almost his namesake so I think it's only fitting that you should become acquainted, even if you're not the most sociable little fella right now,"  he says.

            At 5:00, Daniel's cries have tapered off to a few staccato blasts here and there, but he is still very much awake.  Spike is beginning to nod off when Dawn's door clicks open and she tiptoes out into the hall.

            Her touch startles him at first.  In his near drowse, he has convinced himself that Victoria Principal is asking him to sample her new and improved eye cream.

            "You want me to take over for a while?"  Dawn asks.  "I have to be at school in a couple hours anyway and I've still got a French quiz to study for.  Daniel can keep me company while I cram."

            "Oh, all right,"  Spike says, wiping his tired and strained eyes.  "I think he's just about ready for beddy-bye.  But then again, I thought that two hours ago."

            Caring for the baby in shifts seems to be the way to go for the first few nights and, at least temporarily, keeps the trio from descending into a collective madness.  What they very quickly come to know is that the barely animated and lethargic baby who exists during the daytime has a completely separate personality at night.  He is feral and agitated as soon as the sun sets.  This his harried and thoroughly depleted parents can only blame on themselves.

            One night, as most of the neighbors are switching off their TV's and bedside table lamps, Spike swings on his black duster and heads for the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Buffy asks as she rocks Daniel back and forth in her arms.

            "Patrol,"  he says, as though she should know.

            "B-but you said you wouldn't be doing that for a while!"

            "And it's been a while,"  he says, checking the supply of stakes in the chest at the foot of the bed.  He can sense Buffy pouting behind his back.  After collecting a suitable store of pointy sticks for the night's cemetery jaunt, he turns to her and cups her chin.  "Come on, love.  You can't expect Giles and the rest to handle patrol forever.  You know they're not as good at making a clean sweep.  Not as careful about getting all the crumbs up.  I wouldn't be surprised to find a hundred head of vampires lurking about tonight."

            "Then you should have someone with you,"  she says.  "Why don't you call Xander---

            He cuts her off with a frown of disapproval.  "You know I don't work well with others, love.  Especially others like him."

            "Then I can ask Dawn to look after Daniel and I can go with you,"  she said hopefully.

            "Now, now, Buffy.  You know what the doc said.  You should wait a full---

            "Six weeks after the delivery before resuming normal activities.  I know that,"  she says, rolling her eyes.  "But I heal faster than other people.  You saw how shocked the doctor was when she went to suture my episiotomy and it was already closing by itself.  And I stopped bleeding two days ago."

            He knows this and he couldn't be more relieved.  Lying beside her with that constant drip of warm and fragrant blood was making him feel a little like someone sworn off caffeine finding himself in bed with a cappuccino machine every night.

            He clicks his tongue.  "I still say you should do as the doc says.  You'll be tip-toeing through the tombstones soon enough and you'll probably miss this time."

            "Oh, yay."  She looks down at her wide-eyed infant who seems content to just look around at this hour.  She thinks about putting him in his cradle but she knows the minute she does, "Waaaahhhhh!"  Though she is exhausted and even speaking words is a bit taxing, she starts to laugh.

            "Why the giggles, love?"  he asks.

            "Oh, it's just that, here I am missing Patrol.  I've actually had someone tell me that I can't do my job for a while and when I was in High School that's all that I wanted.  A normal life, without having to worry about some big, bad evil thing sticking his hand in the Hellmouth and pulling out more big, bad evil things."

            "Enjoy it while it lasts, then,"  Spike says," kissing her on her forehead before bussing Daniel on his. 

Daniel yawns, his lolling tongue spackled with the white dot residue of Buffy's breast milk.  He scrunches up his face and she knows what's about to happen.  It starts out as just a little whimper before rising to a spine-tingling squeal.  She puts the baby's head on her shoulder and rubs his back softly as he fills her ears with the first few notes of his nightly Concert for the Weary and Bone-Tired.  "I'm trying to,"  she replies at length, long after Spike has left the room.

            Buffy and Spike have both read over and over that until a child is aware that night is the time for rest, parents should just sleep when the baby does.  But with Daniel catching most of his Z's during the day, that doesn't leave a lot of time for other things.

            One day, Buffy is indulging in a quick nap after lunch when she is suddenly and rudely awakened by Spike loudly opening and closing the dresser drawers.  His black tee shirt is draped over his naked shoulder and there is the distinct odor of sour milk wafting through the air.

            "There's no blood in the fridge,"  he says.

            "So you think you're going to find it in the chest of drawers?"  she asks.

            "No.  I'm just saying, is all.  I'm looking for a clean shirt.  I thought Daniel just needed to get rid of a little gas, but there was more to it, I found out, when I burped him,"  he says before reaching the bottom drawer and realizing that there are no clean shirts.  He swivels around, hands on hips.  "You haven't done the wash?"

            "And I would have time to do that…when?"  she asks.

            "When you usually do it."

            "Spike, since the baby's been home, I haven't had the time to do any of the things I usually do!  What's wrong with your arms?"

            Spike makes a quick assessment of his limbs.  "Nothing.  Why?  Do they look different or something?"

            She rolls her eyes.  "I'm only saying that you could take the dirty clothes down to the laundry once in a while."

            "You yelled at me the last time I washed clothes.  Said I put too much fabric softener in your knickers and they made you all itchy."

            "Well, that was your cue to say, 'Memo to self.  Less fabric softener next time."

            "So you want me to do the laundry now?"  he asks.

She angrily strips back the covers and leaps out of the bed.  "What I want is…"  Standing in the middle of the room, she silently counts to ten before wresting the soiled garment from Spike's shoulder.   "Here.  Give me the damn shirt.  I'll rinse it out in the sink. "  Before closing the door to the bathroom, he hears her off-handedly remark, "Maybe you should look into finding your old wheelchair since you seem to be handicapable again."

            In this period of adjustment, barbed words do tend to crop up now and then when the nights are long and sleepless and there doesn't seem to be a solution in sight to Daniel's eruptions of volcanic weeping. 

A few nights later, Spike returns from his patrol quite late.  It's after 2:00 am when he strolls over the threshold. 

            The minute he enters, Buffy shoves Daniel into his arms.

            "Take your son!"  she orders.

            "What?"  he asks, wanting nothing more than to collapse onto the sofa.

            "Take your son!  Take your son!  Take your son!"  she screams.

            He sighs and takes Daniel from Buffy's arms.  "What's been going on?"

            "Everything.  Everything, everything!"

            Because Buffy is saying her words in triplicate, it seems much more has been going on than usual, or just too much of the usual for too long a period.

            Dawn emerges from the kitchen, looking as though she has just gone ten rounds with Lenox Lewis in Memphis.  She puts a bottle of Buffy's expressed milk in Spike's hands.  "It's your turn,"  she says to Spike.  "I'm done.  And if having a baby is anything like this for me, menopause can't come soon enough."  As she is about to enter her bedroom, she says over her shoulder, "And menopause happens about fifteen years from now, right?"

            "Only if you're lucky," Buffy glowers.

            Spike holds back for a few moments, not knowing whether he should go to her or not when he knows that in this post-partam time she can go either way at any given moment.  He watches her pace around the room, arms akimbo, her exaggerated exhalations blowing her hair from her forehead.  She settles into a non-threatening stance in the middle of the room, but Spike doesn't move to comfort her.  There's still a bit of electricity in the air that tells him sparks might fly if he touches her.  Her emotions, which seem to be just a fraction of a millimeter below her skin these days, take a sudden dramatic turn and she convulses in a sob.  "Nobody ever tells you how hard this is going to be."

            He wants to tell her she is wrong, but he knows better.  For her entire pregnancy she was told, either by strangers on the street who just wanted to touch her belly or by the strangers who wrote the books she so voraciously read one after the other, that life with a newborn is never easy.  She knows this, but seems to have conveniently forgotten it in the influx of this new reality around her.

            "They tell you life is going to be different,"  she continues.  "But they don't tell you how different it's going to be.  It just seems…it just seems like to me, anyway, that…And I HATE myself for even thinking this, but…"  She purses her lips before howling out another sob of hopeless frustration.  "Maybe this was a mistake."

            "Oh, now, sweetheart---

            She throws up a hand in protest.  "No!  I mean it!  I was just sitting here tonight with Daniel screaming at me for two hours and it was like he was saying to me, 'Why can't you be better at this?'  I'm the Slayer, for God's sake!  I go up against demons five times my size on a nightly basis and here I've got this little thing that I don't know what to do with.  I just don't know what to do with him, Spike!"  She hurls herself onto the sofa and lets her head fall onto one of the throw pillows.

            For a minute all Spike can do is stand there and watch her because he senses that she does not want him to do anything else.  For some reason she has convinced herself that she is alone in this, though the father stands there holding their child, who is now silent and maybe even a little concerned about his mother's emotional outburst.

All at once Spike thinks he knows what the problem is.  And when he really does put some thought into what Buffy is going through, he almost feels like smacking himself for overlooking the obvious.

            He takes a seat beside her warily.  He doesn't touch her right away, though.  Her shoulders heave in great waves of motion against the pillow she clutches and instead of diminishing, the volume of her sobs seems to be growing louder. He lays the pretzel twist of warm, languid flesh on his lap, the baby's head nestled between his knees.  The baby at first protests the new location, but then gamely tries to adjust.  Spike looks down at his mewling infant and traces the soft down of the child's barely there eyebrows.  He trails the callused pads of his thumbs down either side of the baby's chubby cheeks.    He circles the shells of the baby's ears with his index fingers.  Just now, the baby turns his head down, pressing his face against Spike's palm, the latest touch provoking an almost bashful look from the child.

            "Ah, there it is.  Right there,"  Spike says with a victorious smile.  "Buffy, look.  I want to show you what he does when you touch his ears."  She remains facedown on the pillow, completely oblivious to him.  "Really, Buffy.  Look.  This is quite amazing."

            Finally she does lift her head and through bleary eyes, she tries to focus on her baby's face.  After a couple squidgying wipes of her hand, she can see a little better.  A little flutter of excitement begins to rail against her dampening self-pity.

            "It looks like he's…smiling,"  she says.

            "Yeah.  A bit.  I was holding him---I think it was the day before yesterday---and I thought I saw him smile.  But I couldn't remember what made him do it.  But it's his ears.  His ears are really sensitive, it seems.  Look."  He draws his finger down the slope of the baby's earlobe and once again, Daniel scrunches his head against his shoulder.  His rosy lips curl in a way that would be barely perceptible to anyone else except the two people who have been mentally cataloging everything he has done since birth.

"But he's not really supposed to be doing that for another month or so,"  she says in staggering wonder.

"Doesn't surprise me.  The men of my line have always been quick studies."  He lifts the baby into his arms, pressing his forehead gently against the baby's delicate cranium.  He turns an eye towards Buffy and grins.  "I had to wait a long time before you'd smile at me."

"Well, eventually when I stopped fighting you I realized that---  She stops herself right there.  All of a sudden she knows with breathless intuition the wisdom her lover is ever so cleverly trying to impart to her, short of banging her upside the head with a frying pan.  "Oh,"  she says very simply.  "So that's what it is.  I've been trying to fight Daniel."

"Mmm hmm,"  he answers while the baby catches him by the jaw with his tiny starfish of a hand.

Her eyes widen.  "I mean, that's how I do things.  I-I find out what it is I'm up against and I fight it."  She takes her head in her hands.  "Oh God!  I am a terrible mother!" 

"No, you're just too good of a Slayer is all."

"How am I ever going to shut off my instincts long enough to get this child to adulthood?  If I keep trying to fight him---

Spike covers her hand with his.  "Just finish what you were saying before, love.  Eventually when you stopped fighting me you realized that…"

            She returns a squeeze to his hand, smoothing her thumb against the stem of his own thumb.  "I realized that I loved you." 

"Exactly,"  he says.  He hands the baby over to her, keeping a hand pressed firmly against the child's bottom.   He drops his jaw to rest on her shoulder and leans his head against her neck.  "When he was born, and everyone was saying that he looked just like me, I wasn't just flattered.  It was like I was being given a second chance."  He swallows so hard his head trembles slightly afterward.  "He's not going to make the same mistakes I've made.  I'm going to be absolutely certain of that.  He's going to be the sort I couldn't be because I was too weak and cowardly.  He's going to be me, only without the being me." 

Buffy is about to make a comment about how she hopes Daniel won't have the same predilection for insane vampire whores in alleyways, but she stops herself, her comment held in a brief smile that broadens when she sees the light in Spike's face as his finger is caught once again by Daniel's tight fisted hug.

"He's got my heart in that tiny palm of his,"  he says in a love-dappled voice.   "I can feel him squeezing it every time he closes his fingers."

Buffy can feel that same constriction too around her heart just when she looks into the baby's face, but never more keenly than she does now.  And there is a warming calm spilling its contents deep inside of her as she holds both her lover and her child close to her.  She is happily at peace, happily seeing through the unclouded vision her lover is always able to give her when her perspective is fogged by uncertainty. 

After all this time, he is always ready with the there, there pats on the back whenever she needs one. 

Buffy is sorting through the basket of freshly cleaned laundry on the sofa, folding napkin-sized onesies and sleepers against her chest while Spike is nearly nodding on the chair in front of the TV, the remote pinned against his tee shirted torso.  Dawn comes into the room, a faded denim jacket thrown over her forearm.  She is wearing a white tank top and long, flowing floral shirt that swirls above her freshly painted toenails.

"Well, I'm off,"  she announces casually as she strides over to the door.

"And where exactly as you off to?"  Buffy asks.

She runs her fingers through her dark tresses.  "Just out.  I'm meeting Travis and Amelia and Greg at the coffee shop."

"Travis isn't picking you up?"

"No.  It's just a show-up type thing.  You remember those kinds of dates, don't you?"

"Yes, I think I remember those.  Only we usually met up at the Bronze."

"The Bronze?  That place is so over, Buffy.  I mean, I know you work there and all, but The Bronze is such a dive.  That troll should come back and wreck the place again."

Buffy nods and continues to dig through the drifts of Ivory Snow laundered clothing, finding her favorite lavender thong clinging to Daniel's baby blue sleeper.

Dawn resumes her trek to the door.  As she reaches for the doorknob, her fingers dance over the metal as though it were glowing with white heat.  She stands there, not even attempting to open the door, her forehead pressed against the wood.

"Something wrong, Dawn?"  Buffy asks.

"No,"  she says firmly.  Then she turns, her forehead creased with worry lines.  "Well, maybe."

"Maybe?" 

She vigorously rubs the back of her head and shifts her weight nervously from leg to leg.  "That's just it.  I don't know.  It's just that…it's just that…"

"Can you be a little clearer, Dawn?  I'm not Miss Cleo, you know."

"Well, Travis had been kind of…odd lately.  Not acting like himself."

"You mean he hasn't been acting the part of the milquetoast poof?"  Spike sniggers.  "Someone ring Mulder and Scully.  We might have one of those alien walk-in cases on our hands."

Dawn comes to rest on the arm of the sofa, sighing deeply as she fusses with the buttons on the front of her jacket.   "I dunno.  He's just been acting so strange about the baby.  I mean, whenever I even attempt to talk about Daniel, he clams up and changes the subject.  I've e-mailed him pix of the baby and he never looks at them.  He says he's afraid of viruses so he's not opening any attachments these days."

"Well, honey, he is a teenaged boy.  They're not exactly the oo'ing and aw'ing type over babies,"  Buffy says, glancing over at her sleeping child, nestled safely in his carrier.

"Yeah, but it's like whenever I talk about Daniel he gets all mad.  He even yelled at me the other day at school.  'Dawn, I'm sick of hearing about Daniel!  It's not like he's your baby!'"

Spike wheels his head around.  "He yelled at you?"

Dawn nods.  "Definite yellage.  And right at the beginning of geometry.  That class is hell enough without---

Spike rises to his feet and tosses the remote into the abandoned chair.  "I'm going with you."

"What?"  Dawn asks, mouth wide open.

"I'm going with you because I'm going to have to kick his Abercrombie and Fitch addicted ass and let him know that NOBODY yells at---

"Whoa, Spike,"  Dawn says, bringing her hands up in front on her.  "Take it easy.  I let him know, in not so many words, that I didn't appreciate him talking to me in that tone and he backed off and apologized.  I'm over it now."

Spike's shoulders sag.  "You're sure?"

"Yeah.  It was no biggie."

Spike approaches Dawn, his hand going to the curve of her defiant chin, his other hand smoothing her dark hair.  "You never let any boy treat you anything less than the goddess you are, you hear me?"

Dawn smiles and captures one of his hands in hers.  "I won't,"  she says, blushing slightly.

He chucks her on the chin.  "I say this because big sis here has a history of letting hulking brutes unworthy of her affections break her heart all to pieces."

"Um… 'big sis' here heard that,"  Buffy says, placing another onesie into the delicate pyramid of folded laundry.

Spike shifts the muscles in his jaw and hoods his bright blue stare in a lingering blink.  "Well, it's true."

"Hmm…hulking brutes.  Would you be referring to the one who applauded my slaying of one of his minions and then announced that on a Saturday he would kill me?"

"That hulking brute was more than worthy of your affections,"  Spike grins.  He struts, cat-like, over to Buffy and peels the static-cling charged sock from her shirt before bringing her to him, cupping the bounty of her post-pregnancy bottom with his hands.  "That hulking brute is probably the best thing that ever happened to you."

"Oh, so he thinks,"  she smiles, desire flooding her as his growing excitement pulsates against her thigh.

"You know that's true,"  Spike says, teasing her lips with the point of his tongue.

Her head is giddy with a sudden gush of lusty thoughts.  "Say it's true.  Say I do want to dance."

"Beneath me?"  he whispers seductively into her ear. 

"OK, you guys are getting mushy,"  Dawn says, throwing up her arms.  "I'm outta here."

Buffy and Spike mumble a goodbye, still locked in each other's eyes.

Buffy brings Spike's head closer to hers, kissing him deeply, her tongue nearly glancing the aged tonsils at the back of his throat.  An errant hand scampers up the flesh of her recovering belly, admiring the suppleness of soft skin that quivers under his touch.  In time, his hand captures the swell of one fully rounded breast, finding the nipple fully erect and dripping with milk.

 "Mmm, honey, remember when we were talking about resuming normal activities after six weeks?"  Buffy asks, shuddering at the touch of his hand down her back.

"Yes?"

"Well, being beneath you would fall under the umbrella category of things to avoid---

"For six weeks after delivery.  I know,"  he says, his chin dropping in defeat to his chest. 

"Aw, honey,"  she says, pulling her fingers through his hair.  "I guess there was a time when Dawn left the apartment, we'd say to ourselves, 'Alone at last.'"  She takes a quick peek at the sleeping infant and sighs.  "But I guess we'll never be alone at last ever again.  Or at least until Daniel is Dawn's age."

"That's a long time to wait to be alone at last,"  Spike pouts, his hands drifting down her backside once again.

Buffy places her lips squarely on his, drinking in the plushness of his bottom lip with the scrape of her teeth.  He purrs in pleasure as she sinks a sinister incisor into his delicate flesh.

"We could make out a little,"  she suggests in a whisper against his mouth.

"Sweetheart, it's been so long since we've made out, I'm afraid a little won't be enough,"  he says, pressing his hips against hers.

From the coffee table, Daniel is emitting sounds signaling his nap is over and he is hungry.

Buffy groans against Spike's parted lips.  "One night beneath you would be good."

"Definitely,"  Spike answers, full of groans himself. 

Buffy tears herself away from his clutches and heads over to the newly awakened Daniel.  With the efficiency of a long-time factory worker, she unbuttons her blouse until her right breast is exposed and the child fuses his mouth with the swollen gland. 

"But this is good too,"  Buffy smiles as Daniel begins to make the tiny coos she has come to interpret as signs of satisfaction.

 "Yes it is,"  Spike says, sitting down beside Buffy, watching the baby drawing Buffy's nipple further and further into his mouth, until the areola disappears under the rose colored flesh of the baby's lips.  "So until he's Dawn's age, eh?"

"Well, maybe not that long,"  she says, adjusting the baby's weight in her arms. "Anyway, I don't even want to think about Daniel being sixteen.  He's growing so fast as it is.  He's not even sixteen days old and some of his sleepers are getting a little snug already."

"Is that right?"

She nods.  "I can't believe it either."

"That's my boy,"  Spike says, bending to kiss Daniel.

She skims her hand across the soft locks of hair covering the baby's veined scalp.  "Yep.  He is that.  Though I shudder to think what the world is going to be like with two of you running around."

He smiles.  "It'll be twice as interesting as it is now, I assure you."