CHAPTER TWENTY

Spike is lying on the sofa, his new clicker in hand to the new TV Buffy bought for him when he hears the door opening. He springs up, hoping that it's her. And it is.

Today Daniel had his five-week check-up. Spike would have gone with them, but the sun's rays at 10:00 am are just too chancy and he makes himself a foreboding presence in pediatrician waiting rooms, cloaked in his Grim Reaper-like-UB-proof garb. He has spent his hours without her getting caught up with TV Land and coming to the sad conclusion that in the time he has been TV-free, the channel has removed Hogan's Heroes from its daily line up.

Buffy's cheeks are pink with the kiss of early fall. Sunny California can get quite nippy in late October. She had to walk to the doctors' and back, carrying the baby and the paper bag of pig's blood from the butcher upon her return. She sets both baby and blood on the kitchen table as Spike goes to investigate how her day went.

"He's doing great," she says, putting the blood in the refrigerator. "He's gaining weight. He's grown an inch. Dr. Henderson was very impressed."

"Ah, I knew he had to be up to half a stone," Spike says, jiggling the fat of his son's thighs. He loves the way his son smiles at him now with a light of recognition in his eyes.

"But there's news about our other problem child," Buffy says wearily. She unfurls a folded letter "There's going to be a parent-teacher meet and greet at the high school and I'm being summoned to attend. It's kind of like the one you went to, uninvited, about four years ago?"

"Oh right," he says. "Is Dawn in some sort of trouble at school?"

"I don't know. But I guess I'll find out there. What I'm asking you is, if I can talk Dawn into Daniel patrol, will you come with?"

"Sure. When is it?"

"November 11. It's a Monday."

"And what time?"

"Well after sunset. Just don't bring your army this time," she says, jabbing him in the stomach with a pointing finger.

"Don't worry. I'll just bring my own charming self."

"Oh God!" Buffy says in a mad dash from the bathroom to her bedroom. "We're going to be late and I can't find my necklace!"

Spike sits on the sofa, his arms spread out behind him, and throws his head back in exasperation. "Did you check the top of the dresser?" he asks.

"First place I looked."

"Well, I'm tapped."

Buffy slides her strappy shoes on while she tears through the myriad of objects on her vanity. Pacifiers, bottles of holy water, bottles of perfume, baby bottles…no necklace.

"I think I saw it in the kitchen by the microwave," Dawn offers from the doorway.

"Oh, of course!" Buffy says. She left it there when she was nuking a Stouffers that afternoon.

As she is hooking the clasp around her neck, she gives her final instructions to Dawn.

"There's plenty of expressed milk in the fridge in case Daniel gets hungry. And remember that it's breast milk, not regular milk, so you shouldn't put it in the microwave."

"I know, Buffy. I've fed him, like, a gazillion times," Dawn says.

"All the numbers are on cork board by the phone. Daniel's doctor, the school, poison control, the fire department."

"Jeez, Buffy! You're only going to be gone for a couple of hours! You think in that time, Daniel's going to learn to crawl, gulp down some Drano and set the place on fire?"

"I'm just taking precautions, Dawn." She looks at Daniel, sitting sweetly in his carrier, taking in the world through the twin blueberry squirts of his eyes. She has known for almost a week that she would be leaving the apartment without him for the first time, but now it's really hitting her.

Dawn sees her sister's quandary and puts a comforting arm around her shoulder. "We'll be fine, Buffy. I've got everything under control."

Time was that Buffy would be soliciting friends to look after Dawn while she ducked out for a night at the Bronze or to sneak in a quick patrol. It has been difficult for Buffy to relinquish the thought that Dawn is someone who needs to be protected all the time. But as she has to look up into her sister's face, even in her heels, it is screamingly evident that her little sister is little only in the sense that she is younger. She is a maturing young woman now with a palpable self-assurance that Buffy only wishes she had when she was that age.

Buffy places a quick kiss on her sister's cheek. "Thank you for looking after Daniel for us."

"Not a problem, Buffy. Now get going because Vice Principal Westerman hates tardiness."

"OK," Buffy says. "Spike, we're leaving," she calls into the living room.

Spike springs to his feet. "Finally. I was half-asleep from waiting."

As Spike helps Buffy into her coat, Dawn is now the one giving instructions.

"If you meet a guy named Mr. Morin, he's an idiot, so don't pay attention to a word he says."

"All right," Buffy says, making a mental note to put Mr. Morin on the top of her list of teachers to interrogate.

"And if you run across Mr. Jarman, remember that his diet consists mostly of marijuana and macrobiotics, so you really can't trust anything he says either."

"I think he was there when I was a student. He had a Grateful Dead sticker on one of the windows in his classroom."

"Now he's got a poster of a concert crowd with the words 'Jerry's Kids' written at the top."

Buffy gives one last lingering look at her son and takes a deep breath. "We won't be gone long," she says, reassuring herself as much as she is reminding Dawn.

"We're good here, Buffy. Don't worry," Dawn says softly.

Buffy nods. "You call us if you need us."

"I will."

"I'll check in with you when we get there," Buffy says.

"I'll be here."

She had no idea it would be this hard. By the time she and Spike are winding the corner to the stairs, Buffy has tears in her eyes.

"What in the hell am I going to do when I have to leave him every night?" she asks, fanning her glistening eyes with her hands.

"I know, sweetheart. But I imagine that each time after this will get a little easier," he says, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It has to," she says, rooting through her purse from some Kleenex. "Otherwise I'll have to become a stay-at-home Slayer."

Not surprisingly, just minutes after Spike and Buffy's departure, the phone rings.

"How are things going?" Buffy asks.

"Fine," Dawn says. "Daniel and I were about to watch a little TV together."

"Has he been crying?"

"Nope. He's been perfectly quiet."

"Hold on," Buffy says before cupping a hand over the phone. "What?" Dawn hears Spike in the background. "No, honey. I don't have any Altoids." There is a grumble from Spike. "Your breath is fine, Spike. Now go in and start mingling. I'll be there in a second." Buffy sighs into the phone. "So you're doing all right?"

"Yes, Buffy. Don't worry! Everything's fine!"

"OK. But please, please call if anything happens."

"I will. I promise."

"Well. I'd better go. Give Daniel an extra gentle squeeze for me."

"Um, I think I'll let you do that. I've learned that extra gentle squeezes lead to little extras in the diaper."

"I'll see you in about two hours, OK?"

"OK, Buffy."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

Dawn has just put the receiver down when there is a knock at the door.

"Who can that be?" she muses aloud as she moves towards the door. Through the keyhole she discerns a fun house mirror version of her boyfriend. "Oh! Travis!" She quickly undoes the locks and throws the door open. "Hey, sweetie!"

Travis grins. "I was just in the area. Thought I'd drop by and say 'Hi.'"

Yeah right, Dawn thinks. But at the same time she's thinking, Yay! She hasn't had any time alone with him since the day of the quake. Their meetings lately have consisted of afternoon crams at the library and open locker door chats before class. This is a pleasant surprise and she can't help smiling as she draws him into the apartment with an eager hand.

"I wasn't doing much of anything." She scoops her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "So, I guess your parents are where Buffy and Spike are tonight."

"Huh?" he bristles.

"D'uh!" she says, slapping him playfully on the arm. "At the dreaded parent-teacher night?"

"Oh, right. That. No, they're not there."

"Yeah. I guess they just got a note that said, 'We're having this thing, but you don't have to come. Travis is perfect. We had to invent a level higher than 4.0 just for him.'"

He coughs out a laugh. "Dawn, you know I got a C in Spanish this term."

"On a daily quiz! But then you got up and read that passage from Don Quixote that almost made Senora Feldman cry!"

From the sofa, Dawn hears the first bleats of dissatisfaction from Daniel, who has been as silent as a goldfish thus far.

"Hold on," she says. The baby's sleepy lips have accidentally dislodged the Nuk from his mouth and, being too young to search for it himself, he is relying on whoever else is around to find it. "Sh…Here you are, Daniel," Dawn says, replacing the Nuk into his waiting lips. But no, this is one of those times when Daniel doesn't want suckling; he wants cuddling. As Daniel has begun to recognize the people in his life, the people in his life have become familiar with what cries mean what. "Oh. OK, Daniel. Dawnie's here." She unstraps him from the carrier and hefts him onto her shoulder, mindful to drape a cloth diaper over her shoulder in case Buffy's milk doesn't agree with him. She casts an apologetic eye towards her boyfriend who doesn't seem to know where to place his stare.

"I'm sorry, Travis. This is kind of like a forced meeting, isn't it?" she asks, remembering his post-quake confession about baby Michael and the emotion in his voice as he talked about him.

"No. No, I've w-wanted to meet D-Daniel," Travis stammers, moving towards them. He extends an index finger for the newborn greeting of five tiny digits around his nearly fully grown one. "Hello, Daniel." He smiles into the not-quite-there expression of the baby. "So you're calling him Daniel?"

"Just Daniel for now," she says. "We're avoiding Danny because…well, it's not who he is so far." She doesn't disclose that Danny is too close to Danny Boy and therefore is too reminiscent of the Gaelic song which harks back to someone both mother and father don't want to be reminded of. "And Dan is a grown up name. Right now he's Daniel or The Baby."

Travis nods. Or Savior, he thinks, conscious of the bottle of chloroform contained in the inside pocket of his letterman's jacket.

Buffy walks into the night shadowed commons room of the new Sunnydale High School where many suited and long-lengthed floral gown forty-something parents are meeting their children's teachers. She knows automatically that she is overdressed for the occasion in her top-of-the-knee-skimming black dress with shoulder-baring spaghetti straps.

Spike stands alone. Momentarily, Buffy wonders if Spike, as the poor poet William, was once the kind of geeky wallflower awaiting a girl to ask him to dance. But as she approaches him, she wonders how that could be. She coaxed him into wearing his deep blue silk button down and gray flannel pants tonight. In this carnation he looks so handsome that covetously she thinks, He's mine.

"There you are," he says. He strips the stickyback from a nametag and pastes it on her dress. Miss Buffy Summers, he has written in his careful left-handed script.

She reads the nametag on Spike's chest and cocks an eyebrow. "Hello your name is William Hogan?"

"It is tonight," he says. "I like the sound of it. Sort of old Hollywood."

"Uh huh," Buffy says, acknowledging her boyfriend's non-sexual crush on Colonel Hogan and all his heroes. "And has Mr. Hogan met anyone here yet?"

"Mr. Hogan was waiting for Miss Summers to show him around," he says, clasping his fingers around hers.

"We'll circulate, then."

Automatically, a curly-haired woman with sun-influenced lines of her face disengages herself from the couple she was speaking with and walks over to Buffy and Spike.

"Miss Summers?" the woman asks.

"Yes?" Buffy turns.

"Miss Summers. We met briefly at the start of Dawn's freshman year. You were, understandably, reoccupied," the woman says. "I'm Vice Principal Westerman."

Buffy can excuse herself from not remembering this woman. When Dawn was about to start high school Buffy was working both jobs and slacking off on her parenting duties. She has a vague memory of going to the school on a hot day and paying the book fees with a money order as she hoped her mother's insurance money would stretch a little further.

"Oh! Vice Principal Westerman!" Buffy says. "Nice to see you again."

"And you are?" Vice Principal Westerman asks, nodding towards Spike.

"Well, this is…" Buffy regards her lover. She smiles and says, "This is my fiancé, William."

Spike hears the appellation with a joy in his would-be soul, the words inspiring a lift in his step as he reaches to shake hands with Mrs. Westerman. "Pleasure to meet you."

"And you as well. Now," Mrs. Westerman says with a vexing look, "You're not the Spike Dawn has talked about in my office, are you?"

"Um," Spike says, wondering about just what Dawn has said about him. "I don't know."

Mrs. Westerman smiles. "Don't be so scared. What she's said is all good. But she didn't tell me that the two of you were engaged."

"We just announced it," Buffy says, grinning up at her betrothed.

"Congratulations!"

"Thank you," the pair mumbles with a sudden bashfulness.

"Now, from what I understand, Mr. Hogan, you have been acting as a guardian for Dawn since her mother's death?"

"Yes, that's right," Spike says guardedly.

"Dawn in such a bright student. But I've been concerned about certain behaviors she has been exhibiting in class. Some teachers have told me that she's been lethargic to the point of falling asleep during lectures. But through my talks with Dawn, I also know that you have a newborn in the household."

"Yes, that's true," Buffy apologizes. "Sp---William and I do have a baby. He's just six weeks old."

"So I imagine she has been kept awake by the new arrival?"

"She's in charge of third shift," Spike explains to Vice Principal Westerman. "Buffy takes 9:00-1:00, I take 1:00 to 5:00 and then Dawn wakes up at 5:00 and takes over until she goes to school, unless Daniel sleeps through the night, which he's been getting better and better at," Spike says, looking lovingly at Buffy. "I suppose everyone needs a chance at being good."

"That is true," vice principal Westerman echoes Buffy's thoughts. "I was just concerned that there might be something else in Dawn's life influencing her sudden dip in productivity."

"She has a boyfriend. They go out. But she's home by eleven every night. She has a strict curfew. William and I don't let her deviate from that. Especially on school nights," Buffy says resolutely.

"She doesn't party?" Mrs. Westerman asks.

"Not on our watch," Buffy says.

"Some parents, even those who think they know their children well, really don't know. And for a sister, taking over parenting duties, I imagine it's been very difficult for her to accept you as an authoritative figure in her life."

"Oh no. It's not like that at all. She's always looked up to me, even before Mom died." Buffy still wonders why when she mentions her mother died it's as though she is saying it for the first time. "Dawn tells us everything. She's very honest," Buffy says.

"She talks to me quite a bit after school," Spike says. "We have our routine when she gets home. I always have a nice, healthy snack prepared for her. Some veggies and juice. Maybe a bit of protein, if I think there is some lacking from her diet. Then we talk. Just this afternoon the two of us were watching a public affairs program on TV and afterwards the two of us had a spirited discussion about personal freedoms in this democratic society of ours." Spike leaves out the fact that the public affairs show they were watching was actually Judge Judy and the high protein healthy snack they shared consisted of Hershey Special Dark miniatures dipped in peanut butter.

A short, slightly balding man sidles up to Vice Principal Westerman. Automatically, Buffy is thinking not so warm thoughts of Principal Snyder. But this man is not so the sniveling Ferengi of a man he was. His teeth are straight and his eyes do not bead.

"The parents of Jill Carlesco are here," he whispers.

"Oh." Mrs. Westerman's face loses all expression. "Listen, I have to take this one. I'm glad that we talked. And if it's any comfort to you, I raised three sons of my own. Before you know it, your baby will be grown. Then you'll have a teen-ager to deal with all over again," she says, excusing herself with a gentle squeeze of Buffy's hand. "Take care."

Buffy's insides are momentarily convulsing from the thought of another teenager to raise when she glances at Spike. His mouth is slack, open to one side. He looks as though he has been struck in the back of the head by a two by four.

"What?" she asks.

"So we're telling people now?" he asks.

"Telling people what?" she asks coyly.

He clinches his jaw. "You said I was your fiancé."

"Well, you are," she says, linking her arm with his. "I just wanted to see how it sounded."

"And how did it sound?" he asks, nuzzling his nose against hers.

"It sounded perfect," she smiles.

They have not spoken fully about what transpired that night. Spike felt---and is still feeling---a great deal of grief, filling himself with her blood and marking her just millimeters above where Angel left his brand. She hid under turtleneck sweaters for a week and treated the wound with plenty of Neosporin. Tonight is the first time she has attempted to wear something neck-baring. The bite is pink now, just barely visible. And what he asked her that night. He often thinks that his proposal was taken as drunk talk in a bar near closing time. It wasn't how he had dreamed of his proposal. His Willow-induced spell had produced a better, more romantic asking of her hand. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him and how pointless his unlife would be without her. But what he said sufficed. She did say yes. He has often wondered if she meant yes, though.

They have not informed everyone about their engagement. A giddy, blood-engorged Spike rattled off the news to Dawn over breakfast the next morning when Buffy and Daniel were still sleeping and she leaped into his arms, peppering his face with kisses. Buffy is as excited as any girl about her impending nuptials and she hopes that Spike is not taking her reticence about it as indifference. She imagines that if they did not live together and see each other every day that she might feel a little differently. For one thing, she has Dawn to act out some of her enthusiasm for her. Since she was told about the engagement Dawn has been hauling home thick bridal magazines and studying them with a connoisseur's eye. She has already chosen the bridesmaids gowns. Swiss blue, floor-length, off the shoulder, something that the attendants really could wear again without looking like they are about to take the stage in a production of the Nutcracker. She has picked out the bouquets: porcelana spray roses, light blue delphinium, pink astilbe, nerine lilies and lavender freesia. She has all but booked the caterer and chosen a honeymoon site for them.

"We have to do something about your finger, though," Spike says.

"Why? What's wrong with it?" she asks, still a little subconscious about physical flaws in the wake of Spike's passionate love bite.

"It doesn't have a ring on it."

"Oh, yeah," she blushes. "The ring. You should probably choose something that won't interfere with the slaying. A band ring. Maybe something with a little swirl of diamonds imbedded in it. Like the stars in a Van Gogh painting."

"Uh huh?" he says, his spirits buoyed.

"Just a little something. The karat weight isn't that much. Just 1/2. But it's set in platinum."

"And just where might I find this ring?" he asks.

"At Conrad's on---" She hasn't wanted to discuss rings because an engagement ring should cost two months' salary and he doesn't have that. "Anything you buy for me will be nice. I don't need a ring to tell the world I'm marrying the love of my life," she says, her eyes shining.

"Darling, when has getting something for someone I love been an issue for me? You know I always find a way somehow. I'll get you something nice," he promises with a kiss as he rubs his knuckles against the back of her head. "So, I suppose the next step after securing a ring is setting a date."

"I've thought about that," Buffy says. "I definitely think that we should wait until Daniel is a little less booby-centric. I mean, right now he's smacking his lips when he wants me."

"Oh, so is that the secret?" Spike asks, smacking his own lips as he draws her close to him.

"Honey, do you think we should call Dawn again?" she asks. "This is her first time alone with the baby."

"Buffy," he says, exasperated. "You just finished telling that Westerman chit that we trusted Dawn. Let's show the Little Bit that we do trust her. I'm sure she's doing a great job with Daniel."

"I think I've got him settled down," Dawn says as she walks into the living room. "He was awake all last night. I think he's exhausted. Hopefully." She plops down next to Travis. "How are you?"

I'm terrified, he wants to say. He clears his throat as Dawn snuggles against him on the sofa. "I'm OK."

"Mmmm," Dawn says, cuddling up to him. "You have such a nice chest. But your heart is, like, running a race." She raises her head to meet his. "What's wrong?"

"Just happy to see you," he says. "And be near you."

"Aw, honey!" she says, diving towards his mouth for a kiss. She whispers against his lips. "I love you."

"And I love you too," Travis says. He looks into her trusting, affection-dappled face and has to turn away, halting his tears by closing his eyes. "I love you so much."

"Travis," she cajoles, fastening both hands on either side of his face. "What's wrong?"

So much. Everything. I wish you didn't love Daniel so. I wish I didn't love you so, he thinks.

Now he is thinking about the church. He has seen it himself. There is a black hole where there was once a sanctuary. There is a hissing of fire replacing songs of praise.

We're all going to hell, he reminds himself. We're all going to hell.

"Dawn, we've been together for over a year. And I care about you more than anyone in the world," Travis says.

"I care about you too, Travis," Dawn says warily, wondering where this is going. He is either going to break up with her or confirm their commitment. Either way, she's scared to death.

Why did we have to come back here? Why did my mother make me seek out the Slayer? And why did I have to fall in love with Dawn? "I was thinking the other night that you and I have been together for over a year and I haven't given you anything to mark our anniversary."

A prezzy! He has a prezzy for me! Dawn's heart instantly begins to thunder. "OK," she says giddily.

"So I did something about that today," he says, sweat springing out over his brow.

Dawn observes the slim sliver of a velvet box produced from Travis' pocket. "Oh my God!" she squeals.

"Let me put it on you." He draws in a breath. "Turn your head. And close your eyes."

Dawn does as instructed, awaiting the cool of his present around her neck. She was thinking envious thoughts just this night when Buffy was searching for the necklace Spike had given her. The omni-present watch has been a temporal reminder of Spike's love for her sister. Dawn has often dreamed that a boyfriend of hers would place something just as meaningful around her neck. Given the wealth of Travis' family and the extent of his largesse when he and the gang go to the coffee shop, she is expecting something big. Something measured in karats. Something that a jeweler would drop his loop about.

Something else other than what happens.

A cloth is clapped against her mouth, cupped by a fierce hand. She screams against it, hearing her own muffled, useless words. She tries to breathe. There is no breath in her lungs. There is only the cloth before her nose and the boy behind her. Her nails dig, bite into the flesh of his forearms. No breath. She draws in nothing. Her nails are growing soft. They are liquid against skin. There is a brief hum and then nothing but blackness.

Travis catches her, slack limbs falling all at once in his arms. Her face is perfectly still, her eyes closed. The cloth is still on her and he dispenses of it as though ridding himself of the used bandages from an oozing wound.

She is near the sofa, so he places here there, positioning her against a throw pillow. He puts her hand against her chin. She looks like she has fallen asleep watching TV. That's just the effect he was hoping for.

He walks into the bedroom, his heartbeat never more evident. There is only his heartbeat and the remembering to breathe. He has to tell himself to breathe or he will forget. His heart throbs and his breath, when it comes, is slow and labored. He fears he will pass out.

Before him is the bed where the Slayer and the vampire sleep. He wasn't expecting just a bed. He was thinking that he might find a coffin or a bar where the vampire might hang by his feet when he sleeps. This is new knowledge to him. The Slayer and the vampire sleep in a bed together. Under the lamp of one bedside table is a paperback copy of What to Expect in the First Year with a miniature Krackle wrapper marking a place 1/3 the way. There is a glass with a frosted lip-gloss kiss. On the other bedside table, beside where the vampire lays his head, is a display of pictures, one of Buffy, one of Dawn, one of the three of them with the baby.

Then there is the baby.

His purpose here, lying sweetly, in the swaddling clothes of a terrycloth sleeper. The baby is sleeping. When Travis gathers him up, Daniel kicks slightly. Travis didn't anticipate the humanness of the baby. When he picked him up, he expected to feel a pointy tail stabbing his arm or a rising howl from the hell the child was supposed to have been born from. Instead, the child randomly tests his muscles and molds his form against Travis' chest, nestling his head trustingly against his kidnapper's shoulder.

The trip back to the carrier is short. Travis puts him in, straps him down. The baby sleeps. But what about Dawn? Is she sleeping? Or is she…?

Did he smother her to death? He checks the vein on her neck. Still pulsating.

"Forgive me," he whispers as he kisses her on her forehead.

Travis hooks his arm under the arch of the carrier. He looks down at the baby, his mind hammered by thoughts of the ruined church and the innocent child. He sucks back a sob.

And he takes the baby away.

"I think that went well," Buffy says, approaching the door of their apartment.

"It was all right," Spike says.

"Oh, come on. You hated every minute of it," Buffy says, relaxing against the door.

"There were only a few minutes I truly hated and they were the ones without you," he says, his lips fixed for a kiss.

She is perfectly content to make out in the doorframe, but as she returns his kiss, a neighbor walks by in a housecoat, mottled skin pouring over into her bedroom slippers.

"Hi, Mrs. Garcia!" Buffy says. "We're engaged!"

The woman mutters something under her breath in Spanish that Buffy can only interpret as, "It's about time."

"We'd better go in," Buffy suggests.

"Yeah, we should," Spike answers, kissing her chin, her cheek, her forehead.

"Stop it," she urges half-heartedly.

"Hmmmm…" is his return as he finds a fitting kissing spot on her collarbone.

Surreptitiously she slips her key into the deadbolt and opens the door.

Automatically, they are greeted by the darkness of the apartment. The TV is still on, pulsating colored light into the blackness.

"I can't believe that we're this lucky. Daniel's asleep?" Buffy whispers incredulously.

"Dawn too," Spike says, pointing to the teenager's prone form on the sofa.

"Wow," Buffy remarks as she heads for the bedroom.

Spike sweeps a hand against Dawn's stilled features. She is so soundly asleep that she doesn't notice his presence.

There is a scream. One that makes Spike think his spine is being split in half by a razor driven up his back

Buffy rushes towards him, brandishing a yellow blanket. Daniel's blanket.

"Daniel's gone!" Buffy howls. "Daniel's gone!"

Buffy tears at the air like a sightless and deaf wild child only to be caught up in the safety of Spike's arms. He cannot assure her. He cannot even begin to comfort her.

He can only cry with her.