Disclaimer: All the characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox,
etc... except of course the ones I make up.
Summary: Spike and Buffy are going to have a baby together!!! I know, I know, it's been done about a million times but I promise that this one is different. Anyway, it also deals with all different types of families that could exist in the Buffyverse.
Spoilers: None really
Continuity: It's the sequel to "Apocalypse now... Again". However, you don't really need to read it to understand this fic. It picks up a few weeks after where "Apocalypse Now... Again" leaves off. Also, I just thought I'd point out that Tara is alive and with Willow, both witches are living with Buffy. Also, Xander and Anya are married and Anya is pregnant.
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FAMILY
Chapter 18: Lost in the Deep Waters of Conversation
Dawn pushed her mashed potatoes around her plate without lifting a bite to her mouth. She knew that she wouldn't be able to keep it down too well anyway, the ache of missing him was still much to strong. It had been three days since and still, that burning pain that reminded her that he wasn't at her fingertips was still there.
"Dawn, you haven't touched your food," Tara said with concern, "you need to eat something."
"You feeling okay?" Buffy chimed in, "are you sick?"
"No," Dawn lied, "just tired." Half-truth.
"Are you sure?" Buffy asked in that annoying, over-motherly tone.
Dawn sighed. "Would you like me to ask my other self?" She retorted, completely lacking in energy and therefore lacking in effect.
"Okay," Buffy said defensively, knowing that it was time to back off.
"You're cut looks like it's healing really nicely," Willow said, awkwardly changing the subject.
Dawn nodded. "Uh-huh."
"Yeah, the doctor said there probably would just barely be a scar, if there even was one at all. He was all shocked and like, 'it's unbelievable how well a cut that bad healed'. I played the shocked-part pretty well I think, and neglected to mention the Slayer healing."
Buffy smiled at Dawn and Dawn grinned back less than half-heartedly. She thought that maybe it would be better if she just told everyone about her break-up with Dave. But then would come the questions and the pity looks that she was just not ready to handle.
No, she would wait.
"I gotta go," Dawn excused herself quietly and left the table so she could throw out her untouched dinner and put her dishes in the sink. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Spike was following her and she sighed heavily.
I can't deal with you now, she thought, could you not care so much for five minutes.
"Nibblet?"
Dawn turned around, forcing her tears not to fall. "Yeah?"
"Where are you going?"
"What... oh. Patrolling. Friday is my night."
"Oh okay, you want me to go with?"
Dawn smiled slightly, still appreciating his concern. "I'm alright," she insisted as she began her path toward the door. She pulled on her jacket and checked for the stakes she had concealed within.
"You sure?" He asked, his face still full of worry, "because it's really not a problem."
"No," she said softly, "I just need to be... I can handle myself."
Before Spike could respond or argue, she had opened the door and left the house. Spike crossed his arms as Buffy walked over to him and put her hand on his elbow, rubbing her thumb over his smooth, cold skin.
"You know, she looks like Dawn and she sounds like Dawn..."
"I know," Buffy said lightly. "I know."
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Dawn continued stealthily through the cemetery. There wasn't a vampire in sight. This wasn't surprising to her, however, this particular graveyard was never all the packed with vamps... they learned fast how much the Slayers hated it when they were there. Each time Dawn would patrol here there would be less and less otherworldly beasties.
Tonight, Dawn wasn't there on business, but then again, she couldn't say that she was there for pleasure. She almost turned around and went back home when her destination was in sight, but it would be easier once she got it over with.
The younger Slayer twirled the small white flower that she was holding easily between her fingers. She reached the headstone and placed it down, careful so as not to mess up the petal. She sighed heavily, smiled sadly, and ran her fingers along the letters of the stone.
"Hey Mom."
Dawn listened for a moment. She was waiting to see if there was a reply. Something... anything... that she knew would never come.
"It's been a while since I've come, sorry about that. I've been kind of busy the past few weeks. There's the slayage and school and stuff. And of course the baby. I think it's supposed to be a secret, but I got Spike to spill and he and Buffy are naming her after his sister, Kaitlin, and you. Kaitlin Joyce, I think it's really pretty. It's got a nice ring to it."
Dawn took a breath before continuing. "They've been pretty crazy about it... but who can blame them? Especially after that vamp attack a few days ago, it's just been crazy. Xander and Anya too, it's funnier with them, though. Anya's all level headed but Xander, I think he may have been the one who got the crazy pregnant hormones.
"I help as much as I can. Everyone's been taking over patrols and stuff, but I've been getting a lot of the dirty work. I'm not mad or anything though, it's my duty. Plus, I've been able to maintain my grades and stuff, and haven't been absent half as much as Buffy was when she my age. I guess I just got the stuff." Dawn laughed.
"But yeah, things are going well in school. I've been taking this really interesting Human Development course, so I think that I'm going to take Psych this fall in college. I may even major in it. But I know, I know, the whole Maggie Walsh thing is kind of a turn off, but she's dead anyway. Not that I'm morbid or anything...
"College, wow, it's barely set in yet that I'm going to be in college but, it's coming faster than I thought it would. I'm going to UC Sunnydale of course, I mean, where else would a Slayer go? It's no big, though. At first Buffy was trying to get me to go pretty much anywhere but here, she said that she could take care of slaying and the like," Dawn paused and gave herself a little mental kick for speaking like Spike. "Anyway, once she got pregnant, it was pretty much out of the question. She would need me here to help since she would have to be taking care of baby and all.
"Anyway... I guess that's pretty much the thick of what's been happening at the front. And I totally mean it when I say it's a war zone. One minute Spike and Buffy will be all snuggly wuggly, the next minute they're screaming at each other. It's really frustrating watching them like that. It really makes me wonder if the Slayer-love thing can ever really work. That's pretty much why I..."
Dawn stopped and wondered if she should continue. She decided that it couldn't hurt, since Mom never talked back anyway.
"That's pretty much why I broke up with Dave. I mean, I love him, I do. I love him in a way that I never though I could ever love anything else in this world. But I feel like when I became the Slayer, a part of me was cut off from love. It's like I shouldn't have it because it messes up my work. It's like I'm supposed to be miserable in order to do my job, like for some greater purpose I need to feel this way."
Dawn could feel the tears begin to come again. The burning sensation reappeared in her throat as she continued. "I try to take it out on the right things in the right way but I always end up going off on someone who doesn't deserve it. I'm giving Spike, and Buffy, and Willow, and Tara the cold shoulder when all they're doing is caring about me. But I don't want him and Buffy to know, that it's their fault...
"That's awful to say, I know it is. But I'm not making it up or wrongly blaming them. The relationship they have scares me and I can't understand it and I don't want that to be me. And I certainly don't want to that for Dave. Mom, I love him so much.
"And I hate it!" She yelled, as the tears finally escaped from her eyes, "I hate the way this all makes me feel. I hate that it's so hard... to try and make him go away. But I can't, and I don't want to make him go away. He's always in my heart, and in my head. I feel like I'm suffocating all the time.
"And I hate this empty feeling in my body. Like a piece of me is missing and a thousand other lame clichés that I didn't understand until now. There's this whole in my heart that I know is supposed to be filled by him but all I want to do is keep him away from the hurt.
"Is it selfish of me to want him so much? To want to feel him holding me? To want to get that sensation I do when I'm with him that makes me safe and warm and loved? Is it wrong? IS IT?"
Dawn pounded her fist furiously on the dirt. "Answer me! God damn it, answer me! Is it wrong? Is it wrong to want him so much and to love him so much that sometimes I don't care if it hurts him? Tell me if it's wrong... I love him enough to stay away but I can't know unless you tell me!"
Dawn was crying so furiously that she had to lean on both palms to keep from falling over. She dug her nails into the dirt as she struggled for breath.
"You're supposed to be there to tell me these things. Please! Mommy! Oh God, sometimes... I think that you aren't gone. Sometimes I wish it so much that I think you're still here. Why can't you be here? You're supposed to be HERE... for me. You weren't supposed to be gone before I was. Please, Mommy, come back! Just for a little while so you can help me."
Dawn was so grief stricken that she couldn't even realize how ridiculous she sounded. She knew better than this. She knew better than begging her dead mother, who had in fact, been dead for nearly three years to come. She knew so much better but right now, she couldn't care less.
"Please," she begged one last time with one final desperate gasp, "please don't be gone."
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Buffy's eyes fluttered open and she looked at her clock. It mocked her with its glowy red numbers that told her it was barely three o'clock. She put her hand on her stomach and groaned.
"Go to sleep already."
The Slayer closed her eyes again and was about to drift off to sleep when she heard faint whimpering. At first, she couldn't tell whether or not it was real or if it was her ears playing tricks on her, but she decided to be safe and check it out just in case. She got out of bed, careful not to wake her sleeping vampire, and left her room. She stood outside her door without moving for a few moments to see if she could still hear anything, and if it weren't for her slayer hearing, she never would have heard it.
Buffy followed the sound to her sister's room and quietly pushed open the door. Her bedside lamp was still on and she was facing the wall opposite Buffy. A soft crying was coming from Dawn, who was curled up on her bed.
"Dawnie?"
Dawn rolled over and looked at Buffy with a swollen, red face. She rolled her eyes at her sister and turned away from her so that she was facing the wall again.
"Go away."
"Dawn, what's wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"Go. Away." Dawn pronounced each word clearly and very angrily, hoping to get her point across to Buffy that she just was not in the talking mood.
"No," Buffy insisted as she got closer in defiance to Dawn's command. "I will not go away until you tell me what's wrong. Dawn, did something happen."
Dawn sat up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked Buffy right and the face as she said, "I broke up with Dave." Her tone was so eerily even that it gave Buffy a chill.
"Oh."
"Now will you leave me alone?"
"Dawn, I didn't even realize," Buffy stammered as she sat beside her obviously heartbroken sister, "what went wrong?"
Time for the whole truth, Dawn decided. She was tired of keeping it in. "You."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"You went wrong. You and Spike."
"Dawn, nothing's wrong with us."
"Oh please, don't speak to me like I don't see what's going on. I'm too old to be patronized. You and Spike are falling apart right before my eyes. You know as well as I do that Slayers just aren't made for love. That's an emotion that we just can't handle."
Buffy shook her head. "You have no idea how wrong you are."
"Wrong? You believe it yourself."
"You're neglecting the past tense here, Dawn. I used to think the way you do. I thought that all a Slayer had was hate, and anger, and death. Death was my gift, Dawnie. I gave you death because I love you more than anything. Love may not be the root of my power, but I've made it the root of me. I love you, and I loved Angel then, and I love Spike now. It's the only way that you can keep the hate from taking over."
"But you are always fighting. You used him for months before you realized it was love. I love Dave so much, and I never want him to hurt him that way. I never ever want to be the cause of his sadness. I just thought that it would be better to end it now. All I want to do is not hurt him, not ever."
Buffy lightly placed her palm on her sister's flushed cheek. "Then you won't."
TBC...
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Hee hee hee. More angsty goodness, eh? LOL! Anyway, please please please review!!!
Summary: Spike and Buffy are going to have a baby together!!! I know, I know, it's been done about a million times but I promise that this one is different. Anyway, it also deals with all different types of families that could exist in the Buffyverse.
Spoilers: None really
Continuity: It's the sequel to "Apocalypse now... Again". However, you don't really need to read it to understand this fic. It picks up a few weeks after where "Apocalypse Now... Again" leaves off. Also, I just thought I'd point out that Tara is alive and with Willow, both witches are living with Buffy. Also, Xander and Anya are married and Anya is pregnant.
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FAMILY
Chapter 18: Lost in the Deep Waters of Conversation
Dawn pushed her mashed potatoes around her plate without lifting a bite to her mouth. She knew that she wouldn't be able to keep it down too well anyway, the ache of missing him was still much to strong. It had been three days since and still, that burning pain that reminded her that he wasn't at her fingertips was still there.
"Dawn, you haven't touched your food," Tara said with concern, "you need to eat something."
"You feeling okay?" Buffy chimed in, "are you sick?"
"No," Dawn lied, "just tired." Half-truth.
"Are you sure?" Buffy asked in that annoying, over-motherly tone.
Dawn sighed. "Would you like me to ask my other self?" She retorted, completely lacking in energy and therefore lacking in effect.
"Okay," Buffy said defensively, knowing that it was time to back off.
"You're cut looks like it's healing really nicely," Willow said, awkwardly changing the subject.
Dawn nodded. "Uh-huh."
"Yeah, the doctor said there probably would just barely be a scar, if there even was one at all. He was all shocked and like, 'it's unbelievable how well a cut that bad healed'. I played the shocked-part pretty well I think, and neglected to mention the Slayer healing."
Buffy smiled at Dawn and Dawn grinned back less than half-heartedly. She thought that maybe it would be better if she just told everyone about her break-up with Dave. But then would come the questions and the pity looks that she was just not ready to handle.
No, she would wait.
"I gotta go," Dawn excused herself quietly and left the table so she could throw out her untouched dinner and put her dishes in the sink. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Spike was following her and she sighed heavily.
I can't deal with you now, she thought, could you not care so much for five minutes.
"Nibblet?"
Dawn turned around, forcing her tears not to fall. "Yeah?"
"Where are you going?"
"What... oh. Patrolling. Friday is my night."
"Oh okay, you want me to go with?"
Dawn smiled slightly, still appreciating his concern. "I'm alright," she insisted as she began her path toward the door. She pulled on her jacket and checked for the stakes she had concealed within.
"You sure?" He asked, his face still full of worry, "because it's really not a problem."
"No," she said softly, "I just need to be... I can handle myself."
Before Spike could respond or argue, she had opened the door and left the house. Spike crossed his arms as Buffy walked over to him and put her hand on his elbow, rubbing her thumb over his smooth, cold skin.
"You know, she looks like Dawn and she sounds like Dawn..."
"I know," Buffy said lightly. "I know."
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Dawn continued stealthily through the cemetery. There wasn't a vampire in sight. This wasn't surprising to her, however, this particular graveyard was never all the packed with vamps... they learned fast how much the Slayers hated it when they were there. Each time Dawn would patrol here there would be less and less otherworldly beasties.
Tonight, Dawn wasn't there on business, but then again, she couldn't say that she was there for pleasure. She almost turned around and went back home when her destination was in sight, but it would be easier once she got it over with.
The younger Slayer twirled the small white flower that she was holding easily between her fingers. She reached the headstone and placed it down, careful so as not to mess up the petal. She sighed heavily, smiled sadly, and ran her fingers along the letters of the stone.
"Hey Mom."
Dawn listened for a moment. She was waiting to see if there was a reply. Something... anything... that she knew would never come.
"It's been a while since I've come, sorry about that. I've been kind of busy the past few weeks. There's the slayage and school and stuff. And of course the baby. I think it's supposed to be a secret, but I got Spike to spill and he and Buffy are naming her after his sister, Kaitlin, and you. Kaitlin Joyce, I think it's really pretty. It's got a nice ring to it."
Dawn took a breath before continuing. "They've been pretty crazy about it... but who can blame them? Especially after that vamp attack a few days ago, it's just been crazy. Xander and Anya too, it's funnier with them, though. Anya's all level headed but Xander, I think he may have been the one who got the crazy pregnant hormones.
"I help as much as I can. Everyone's been taking over patrols and stuff, but I've been getting a lot of the dirty work. I'm not mad or anything though, it's my duty. Plus, I've been able to maintain my grades and stuff, and haven't been absent half as much as Buffy was when she my age. I guess I just got the stuff." Dawn laughed.
"But yeah, things are going well in school. I've been taking this really interesting Human Development course, so I think that I'm going to take Psych this fall in college. I may even major in it. But I know, I know, the whole Maggie Walsh thing is kind of a turn off, but she's dead anyway. Not that I'm morbid or anything...
"College, wow, it's barely set in yet that I'm going to be in college but, it's coming faster than I thought it would. I'm going to UC Sunnydale of course, I mean, where else would a Slayer go? It's no big, though. At first Buffy was trying to get me to go pretty much anywhere but here, she said that she could take care of slaying and the like," Dawn paused and gave herself a little mental kick for speaking like Spike. "Anyway, once she got pregnant, it was pretty much out of the question. She would need me here to help since she would have to be taking care of baby and all.
"Anyway... I guess that's pretty much the thick of what's been happening at the front. And I totally mean it when I say it's a war zone. One minute Spike and Buffy will be all snuggly wuggly, the next minute they're screaming at each other. It's really frustrating watching them like that. It really makes me wonder if the Slayer-love thing can ever really work. That's pretty much why I..."
Dawn stopped and wondered if she should continue. She decided that it couldn't hurt, since Mom never talked back anyway.
"That's pretty much why I broke up with Dave. I mean, I love him, I do. I love him in a way that I never though I could ever love anything else in this world. But I feel like when I became the Slayer, a part of me was cut off from love. It's like I shouldn't have it because it messes up my work. It's like I'm supposed to be miserable in order to do my job, like for some greater purpose I need to feel this way."
Dawn could feel the tears begin to come again. The burning sensation reappeared in her throat as she continued. "I try to take it out on the right things in the right way but I always end up going off on someone who doesn't deserve it. I'm giving Spike, and Buffy, and Willow, and Tara the cold shoulder when all they're doing is caring about me. But I don't want him and Buffy to know, that it's their fault...
"That's awful to say, I know it is. But I'm not making it up or wrongly blaming them. The relationship they have scares me and I can't understand it and I don't want that to be me. And I certainly don't want to that for Dave. Mom, I love him so much.
"And I hate it!" She yelled, as the tears finally escaped from her eyes, "I hate the way this all makes me feel. I hate that it's so hard... to try and make him go away. But I can't, and I don't want to make him go away. He's always in my heart, and in my head. I feel like I'm suffocating all the time.
"And I hate this empty feeling in my body. Like a piece of me is missing and a thousand other lame clichés that I didn't understand until now. There's this whole in my heart that I know is supposed to be filled by him but all I want to do is keep him away from the hurt.
"Is it selfish of me to want him so much? To want to feel him holding me? To want to get that sensation I do when I'm with him that makes me safe and warm and loved? Is it wrong? IS IT?"
Dawn pounded her fist furiously on the dirt. "Answer me! God damn it, answer me! Is it wrong? Is it wrong to want him so much and to love him so much that sometimes I don't care if it hurts him? Tell me if it's wrong... I love him enough to stay away but I can't know unless you tell me!"
Dawn was crying so furiously that she had to lean on both palms to keep from falling over. She dug her nails into the dirt as she struggled for breath.
"You're supposed to be there to tell me these things. Please! Mommy! Oh God, sometimes... I think that you aren't gone. Sometimes I wish it so much that I think you're still here. Why can't you be here? You're supposed to be HERE... for me. You weren't supposed to be gone before I was. Please, Mommy, come back! Just for a little while so you can help me."
Dawn was so grief stricken that she couldn't even realize how ridiculous she sounded. She knew better than this. She knew better than begging her dead mother, who had in fact, been dead for nearly three years to come. She knew so much better but right now, she couldn't care less.
"Please," she begged one last time with one final desperate gasp, "please don't be gone."
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Buffy's eyes fluttered open and she looked at her clock. It mocked her with its glowy red numbers that told her it was barely three o'clock. She put her hand on her stomach and groaned.
"Go to sleep already."
The Slayer closed her eyes again and was about to drift off to sleep when she heard faint whimpering. At first, she couldn't tell whether or not it was real or if it was her ears playing tricks on her, but she decided to be safe and check it out just in case. She got out of bed, careful not to wake her sleeping vampire, and left her room. She stood outside her door without moving for a few moments to see if she could still hear anything, and if it weren't for her slayer hearing, she never would have heard it.
Buffy followed the sound to her sister's room and quietly pushed open the door. Her bedside lamp was still on and she was facing the wall opposite Buffy. A soft crying was coming from Dawn, who was curled up on her bed.
"Dawnie?"
Dawn rolled over and looked at Buffy with a swollen, red face. She rolled her eyes at her sister and turned away from her so that she was facing the wall again.
"Go away."
"Dawn, what's wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"Go. Away." Dawn pronounced each word clearly and very angrily, hoping to get her point across to Buffy that she just was not in the talking mood.
"No," Buffy insisted as she got closer in defiance to Dawn's command. "I will not go away until you tell me what's wrong. Dawn, did something happen."
Dawn sat up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked Buffy right and the face as she said, "I broke up with Dave." Her tone was so eerily even that it gave Buffy a chill.
"Oh."
"Now will you leave me alone?"
"Dawn, I didn't even realize," Buffy stammered as she sat beside her obviously heartbroken sister, "what went wrong?"
Time for the whole truth, Dawn decided. She was tired of keeping it in. "You."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"You went wrong. You and Spike."
"Dawn, nothing's wrong with us."
"Oh please, don't speak to me like I don't see what's going on. I'm too old to be patronized. You and Spike are falling apart right before my eyes. You know as well as I do that Slayers just aren't made for love. That's an emotion that we just can't handle."
Buffy shook her head. "You have no idea how wrong you are."
"Wrong? You believe it yourself."
"You're neglecting the past tense here, Dawn. I used to think the way you do. I thought that all a Slayer had was hate, and anger, and death. Death was my gift, Dawnie. I gave you death because I love you more than anything. Love may not be the root of my power, but I've made it the root of me. I love you, and I loved Angel then, and I love Spike now. It's the only way that you can keep the hate from taking over."
"But you are always fighting. You used him for months before you realized it was love. I love Dave so much, and I never want him to hurt him that way. I never ever want to be the cause of his sadness. I just thought that it would be better to end it now. All I want to do is not hurt him, not ever."
Buffy lightly placed her palm on her sister's flushed cheek. "Then you won't."
TBC...
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Hee hee hee. More angsty goodness, eh? LOL! Anyway, please please please review!!!