A/N : Many thanx again to those who reviewed, you guys make me smile :-) and I love to hear your ideas on what you think might happen, you'll just have to wait and see if you're right though...This was a weird chapter to write because it's not really like one long chapter, after an initial intro it's sort of like four separate stories that will all join up soon...I think you'll see what I mean. Hope you like it, and let me know what you think of it please, after all, that is what the review button is for... ;-)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 7 - Decisions Made

Two days. How much can happen in just forty eight hours? You would think not much perhaps, but there are four people in a town called Sunnydale who would disagree. So much can happen, too much maybe, and it did happen that weekend. The whole week had been bad enough...

Monday, Spike had found out the truth about Angel, a truth he had told to Willow and Xander on Tuesday, then on Wednesday his apartment bore witness to the first major fight between himself and his best friend, Buffy, as he told her too.

Thursday passed in bitterness and a revelation for Spike as the truth hit him like an express train - he was in love with his precious friend, and that night he had to put those feelings away, hide them away in his heart as that very girl cried on his shoulder, admitting she was carrying his enemy's child.

Friday had meant tears, in all four quarters. Buffy wept for the decision she was forced to make as her lover, the father of her unborn child, gave her an ultimatum - him or their own creation. Spike's tears fell for Buffy, his sympathy for her and his doomed affections, whilst Willow cried for her friends and herself, her love that must be buried to preserve her friendship with Xander. No-one knew that Xander cried, it was so long since anyone had ever seen the tears of this clown, but they were there for Buffy, for Spike, for the unfairness that was life...

If the week was pain, the weekend started in sheer agony. As the sun rose on a bright and cheerful Saturday, four dark and thunderous clouds seemed to be expertly positioned over the beds of four young people as they awoke to a new day, tear stained faces and aching hearts, one and all.

They all got up, got clean, got dressed in relative silence, no reason to be happy that they could see. No reason to want to sing along to the radio, smile at the morning sun, or kindly thank the good forces of light for the dawning of another day. They all had something to do today that they dreaded, something that must be done that they wished could be avoided, but it couldn't, and they all knew it.

Her normal routine, Willow brushed her shoulder length red hair, applied a little make-up, wandered to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee...nothing ever changed in her simple little life, everything had been the same since she'd lived in her own little apartment, the one she had moved into straight from college. High school, college, first job, all with Xander, Buffy and Spike and her side. Happy times, happy memories, slowly being shattered by the sadness of the present, the impending gloom of the future.

Xander. A name she was accustomed to hearing, to saying, to thinking on a regular basis as any word in the English language. She loved him, of course everyone knew that, it was obvious, they had been best friends since they'd first met in kindergarten, but this wasn't just friendship love, this was true love. The kind of love that could make one's life perfect and complete, the kind of love that could so easily destroy instead.

For years she felt it coming, last few months she knew but would not admit it even to herself. She forced the feelings back, swallowed down the words she feared to say. Fear that he would laugh at her, that he would not feel the same, that she'd lose him from her life, and that she could not bear.

She saw now how things could be if she did not bury what she felt. Watching Spike and Buffy, what love was doing to them, tears came to her eyes as she thought of it, a lump to her throat. To see her best friends in so much pain, both just because they'd fallen in love with someone they shouldn't fall in love with...

With a shake of her head to clear her thoughts, Willow looked into the glass of the mirror, straightened her hair, checked her minimal makeup and headed for the door, a firm idea in her mind, a suitcase in her hand.

The man on Willow's mind was up earlier than usual, he hadn't been able to sleep so he figured it was useless just lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Eight o'clock in the morning he was awake, so unconventional for Xander that it was scary, but not half as scary as what he was feeling right now.

The boys greatest skill was humour, and the ability to hide his emotions behind jokes and giggles was his greatest gift...it was also his curse. No-one saw beyond it, to the real him, or at least most people didn't. Buffy and Spike, and most importantly Willow, saw beyond it, saw the Alexander Harris that he wanted to show the world but was too scared to reveal too much.

That true him was in love, believed that maybe he always had been but he'd been too blind to see it perhaps, until now. When Spike realised what he felt for Buffy, the things he said about her as he rocked back and forth, tears and emotions pouring out in waves, Xander realised the words, the feelings, they applied to him too. He felt all these things that Spike was feeling, but thankfully not for the same girl because, hey, how awkward would that have been? No, Xander had realised all too suddenly that Willow, shy and quiet little Will, was the woman he was destined to be with in his dreams.

In was comforting when he realised it, it made sense of a whole lot of stuff. Why he'd never had a serious girlfriend, why he cared so much about his friend above and beyond anyone else in the world, why sometimes when he looked at her he felt something in his heart give way...

Spike had not told Buffy how he felt and Xander knew maybe he never would, but there was no way this guy was going to make that mistake, never going to let the girl he loved slip through his fingers.

As he opened the front door and stepped out into the morning sun, he took a deep breath knowing today was the day he made a difference in his life, he hoped the difference would be good, but he knew he had a lot to lose, his whole world could come crashing down if she told him...no, he didn't want to think so negative, 'I have to hope, have to be positive' he told himself as he walked off towards his future.

Next out of his front door was Spike. He had spent too much time thinking and not enough time taking action. He was in love with a girl, he needed to tell her. He knew, of course, that in reality, it was more complicated than that. Buffy wasn't just some girl he'd met, she was...well, Buffy. What other word was there to describe her? Nothing could, she was too special, too perfect, too precious to him for mere adjectives found in everyday language. She was just Buffy, and oh how he loved her for being just that.

He had to tell her, his timing was inordinately bad, he knew it, but he could think of nothing but her and how he felt about her. The only thing he could do was tell her, and it didn't matter what her reaction was. Even if she said she never wanted to see him again...well, he didn't want to consider what would happen then, but things could not go on as they were. So, she was having Angel's baby, that didn't mean he was selfish by telling her now, did it? Spike knew very well he was lying to himself but the one thing he knew even more than that, above all else, was that he was a man in love. He'd worry about the consequences later, right now his mind was made up, he was going to tell Buffy how he felt.

As her best friend headed for her apartment, Buffy promptly left her home. No clue in her mind that she might have visitors so early, least of all Spike, she pulled her coat tight around her body and set off for her destination. Her decision made and now only the consequences to face, the truth was Buffy was petrified. The choice was almost impossible but she'd made it and she'd stick to it, no turning back now. She loved Angel so much, and he promised they would be together someday soon, all she had to do was keep to their plan. That plan had not included what he called their 'little accident' and so the error must be removed from the picture.

Could it be so simple? To just erase it, like a stray smudge of graphite on a notebook page. The being inside her was too tiny to be a child yet, nothing but a blob really, but it was part of her and part of him, spawned out of their love for one another, or her love for him at least. But Buffy was convinced that Angel did love her, that one day it would be her that owned the title of Mrs O'Connor, instead of Darla who did not deserve such a man.

People who knew the couple would be inclined to agree that the blonde woman, who looked almost ten years older than she really was through the stress of her marriage, did not deserve the life she had, or the man she was married to, but only because they had heard the screaming, seen the bruises...no-one deserved that. And yet, not three months after she'd left him, Darla had run back to her husband, too lost without him, so naive to believe that he'd changed this time, of course he hadn't.

Buffy, poor innocent little Buffy, knew nothing of this. She knew only of how much she loved the man whose child she carried, the man she would choose above and beyond this creation, this tiny bundle of cells that would not live to see tomorrow...

To Be Continued...