73

"Ms. Powers, come right on in." The nurse looked a little askance at Spike, taking in the details that the two busybodies had noticed. "And this is Mr. Powers?"

Rose looked at Spike helplessly. At Wolfram and Hart, everybody knew the situation. She'd never heard a last name for Spike, as he'd long since dropped the one he'd been born with.

"Close enough," Spike agreed. He hadn't thought about it either, but decided that it wasn't worth causing a row about.

"Did you bring along your specimen?" the nurse asked Rose.

Rose, with a look of supreme distaste handed her the small plastic container with her urine sample, wrapped in about half a dozen plastic bags. She thought it was completely disgusting, but since she didn't know the whys and wherefores, didn't argue.

They got to the examining room and she handed Rose a gown. "Perhaps you'd like to wait out in the hall while she changes, sir?"

Spike looked amused. "I'm the one that got her pregnant," he pointed out. "Think she's got anything I haven't already seen?"

The nurse bristled. She wasn't used to dealing with anyone like Spike. Usually when a father to be came in, he followed her polite suggestions as if they were orders from on high.

Even though Spike stayed out of the way without comment while the nurse attended to the routine tasks of taking Rose's vitals, the temperature in the room dropped perceptibly.

When Dr. Pratt arrived, he entered a little warily. Evidently the nurse had given him an earful concerning Spike.

"Are the pills taking care of the nausea for you?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you," Rose replied. "I feel ever so much better."

"Sticking to the diet I gave you?" he went on.

"Pretty much," she answered slowly, and shot a glare at Spike's smirk. The diet wasn't so much a diet as a set of guidelines. Rose just interpreted the terms a little liberally upon occasion. Especially in regards to ice cream.

Pratt glanced at her chart. "Your blood pressure is up a little bit from last month."

"It's been a kind of hectic month at work," Rose muttered.

"If it goes up any higher, I'm going to have to put restrictions on you," he warned. "Too much stress is bad for your baby."

"Babies," Spike corrected him. "There's definitely two heartbeats."

"And I suppose your crystal ball told you that?" Pratt remarked in amusement.

"From listening, you nit." Spike wasn't getting overheated yet, but he was ready, willing and able.

"You have your own stethoscope?" Pratt was starting to long for the good old days when the patients left the medical matters to the doctors.

"I've got very good ears," Spike mumbled. If Rose hadn't already come here once, he'd have tried talking her into going to the medical staff at Wolfram and Hart. At least they wouldn't boggle about him being a vampire.

The doctor glanced at Spike lounging against the far wall of the small room. Dealing with expectant fathers as long as he had, he'd perfected the technique of discreet communications with the mother. "Your young man is letting his imagination run away with him," he said to Rose in tones no human could have heard from Spike's position. "There's no way he could have heard the baby's heartbeat unaided. It was probably just tummy gurgles."

"I know the difference between a gut rumble and a heartbeat, doc," Spike commented. "But since you don't believe me, why don't you take a listen for yourself?"

Pratt started. He had carried on uncounted numbers of such conversations with expectant mothers, and never once had the father heard him. "I was just about to," he muttered. He placed his stethoscope on Rose's stomach. He moved it around a few times, frowning. "I can't really say one way or another," he said. "If there are two of them, they are so nearly synchronous that it's impossible to tell." He gave Spike a hard look as if daring him to disagree. "And that's with a stethoscope, young man. There is no way you could tell with unaided human hearing, no matter how good your ears are."

Spike shrugged. There was no way to explain without telling the good doctor things he wouldn't believe and would probably rather not know if he did. "Have it your way, doc," he replied easily. "You'll see I'm right. When do you do one of those whatayacallem, picture things? When you can actually see the babies inside her stomach?"

"We don't do the ultrasound until the fifth month," Pratt replied. "So you're going to have to wait a while longer, I'm afraid. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

"Now that you mention it." Spike pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He'd had so many questions piling up that he'd written them down just in case he forgot something. "First off, are you sure that it's all right for us to have sex?"

&&&&&&&

"That was enlightening," Spike remarked as they headed back for the law firm. "I'm glad I went along."

"I'm not," Rose muttered sulkily. "You embarrassed me to death. From now on, I'm going alone."

"You're not going anywhere alone until we find out who's trying to get his hands on you, luv," Spike disagreed. "And besides, I'd kind of like to know what's going on with you and the kids." He reached over and patted her stomach gently.

"You could sit in the waiting room," she suggested hopefully.

"And listen to all the gossiping cats speculating as to whether we're married or I'm just your sugar daddy?" Spike inquired. "No dice, babe. If it's about all those questions I asked, well, I do have a certain amount of interest in how you're doing."

"I think the doctor thinks you're nuts," Rose groused. "And I'm not sure that I don't agree with him. Should I be picking up clothes, your clothes, I might add, off the floor? Should I be picking up my briefcase? Should I be sitting so much? Standing? Laying down? I'm surprised that you didn't ask him for a schedule with every minute of my day mapped out including trips to the bathroom."

"I'm just trying to take care of you, sweetheart," Spike mumbled meekly. "I only want what's best for you and our kids."

Rose sighed. Six more months of this? She didn't know how she was going to get through it.

&&&&&&&

Angel was headed back to his office from a meeting with Wesley when Rose returned. "How did the doctor's visit go, Rose?" he asked.

Rose just barely managed not to glare at him. "If you have any stakes laying around the apartment, I'd suggest that you get rid of them," she growled. "Or, at the very least, find something very urgent for Spike to do the next time I have a doctor's appointment. I must have been out of my mind to invite him to come along."

Angel closed his eyes, visualizing the worst. "How badly is the doctor hurt?" he inquired.

"He didn't do anything to the doctor, this time," Rose muttered. "Except make a royal pain of himself and embarrass me almost to tears. I can't believe all the stupid questions that he asked that poor man." She colored thinking that Dr. Pratt's assurances that they could have sex weren't enough for Spike, he'd had to ask about various positions, in explicit detail. She wondered if she could or should change o.b.s right now. She wasn't sure that she could face him again after today's session.

Angel knew it would probably piss Rose off, but he couldn't help laughing. "He's just trying to take care of you the best way he can," he said, trying and failing to control his mirth. "It couldn't have been that bad, could it?"

The hallway wasn't entirely empty, so Rose motioned him into her office. Still beet-red, she quoted one of Spike's x-rated questions to the doctor, eyes firmly on the wall past Angel's left shoulder. There was no way she could repeat that question while looking him in the eye.

Angel's eyes grew wide. "He asked the doctor that?"

"That was actually one of the least embarrassing ones," Rose mumbled. "Liam, I do appreciate the fact that Spike is doing all this because he loves me and wants what's best for me and our children but he's..,"

"Going off the deep end," he finished for her. "Do you want me to talk to him?" Angel tried to remember what life had been like when he hadn't been a go-between for Rose and Spike. It seemed so long ago.

"If I thought you'd have any better luck than I did," she remarked. "I'd say please, I'd even beg on bended knee, which, by the way, is all right for me to do. But I don't think he's in a listening mood right now."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Where Spike is concerned, that's a given," he replied. "But maybe I can find a way to get his attention."

"If you can actually get through to him, I'll be forever in your debt," Rose said fervently.

"Just see if you can get me back on the godparents list." Angel winked at her and left.

&&&&&&&

Spike was surprised, and not entirely pleased to see Angel enter what he thought of as his domain. Soul or not, vampires still tended to be very territorial. "To what do we owe the honor of your nancy-boy presence?" he asked at his obnoxious best. Always stick with your strengths.

Angel shed his suit jacket. "I've been feeling a little cooped up in the office," he replied. Well, that at least, was no lie. "Thought I'd work a few kinks out. Join me in showing your guys how it's done?"

Spike's eyes lit up. An opportunity to pound on the ponce and with his permission yet? And here he'd thought his day couldn't get any better. "Long as you don't mind letting the lads see you get your candy-ass kicked," he replied.

"Give me your best shot," Angel said. That was all it took for Spike to come at him.

It really didn't last as long as it seemed to the men watching them, and not nearly as long as it seemed to Spike. He did get in a few shots, true, but almost every move he made, it seemed that Angel was ready for it.

Angel had Spike pinned to the floor. "Have I got your undivided attention now?" he asked.

"What?" Spike hadn't thought of it as attention getting, more like ass-kicking with the wrong ass getting kicked.

"Your attention." Angel spoke slowly, enunciating with precision. "Do I have it?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Spike was willing to make a few concessions at this point. He could always tell the men that it had been staged or something. Sure as hell wasn't going to let them think the pouf could knock the stuffings out of him at will.

Angel looked up at the ops men, staring at the scene, goggle-eyed. "Why don't you guys go take a break or something?" he suggested, and the men melted away like fog being hit by the rays of the rising sun.

As soon as the men were gone, Angel got off Spike, stood and kicked him in the ribs for good measure. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "I cannot believe that you humiliated Rose like that."

"I did what?" Spike got to his feet carefully, the only reason he wasn't hugging himself, trying to soothe the pain in his ribs was sheer grandstanding. "What in bloody hell are you on about now?"

"If anyone ought to be getting down on bended knees," Angel growled. "And I really do not want to know why you asked the doctor that, it ought to be you, begging Rose to forgive you for making an ass out of yourself and embarrassing her."

The light was slowly beginning to dawn on Spike. "How much did Rose tell you?" he asked, trying to assess how bad the damage was.

"Enough to give me a few visuals that are really going to haunt me for a while," Angel replied. "But probably nowhere near as bad as what that obstetrician is going to have to live with."

If vampires could blush, Spike almost certainly would have done so then. Okay, so maybe Angel knew more about their love-life than either of them was comfortable with, seeing how much time he and Rose spent in his spare room. But guessing and knowing are two different things. "I'm just trying to take care of her and the babies," he muttered. "What's it to you, ponce?"

"In case you hadn't noticed," Angel snapped. "The two of you happen to be living under the same roof with me at the moment. I wouldn't mind a little bit of peace and quiet from time to time. Which I don't see happening when Rose is so pissed at you that she said that I ought to get rid of any stakes I may have laying around the place."

Spike's eyes widened. "Rose said that?" He'd known she was a bit put out, and she had been a little moody of late, but he'd never dreamed that she was that irate.

"She did," Angel replied grimly. "If I were you, Spike, right now I'd be thinking just what I could do by way of an apology. A very major apology."

"With you sitting there watching the whole thing and enjoying every minute of it, no doubt," Spike grumbled. "I'll admit that maybe I crossed the line a bit. But not enough to put on a show for you."

"I'm going out tonight," Angel informed him. "I probably won't be back till around midnight. You'll have the place all to yourselves." He started towards the door, but turned for one last bit of advice. "Spike? You'd better make it damned good."

"No shit," Spike muttered as he watched Angel's departure. "Oh sodding hell."

&&&&&&&&

"What is your next plan of action to secure me the vessel?" M'rek asked his servant.

"I have documents to deliver to the law firm," Kraj said at his obsequious best. "With your permission, my Lord, I shall take one of the diviners with me to make the confirmation that she is the vessel absolute. If I cannot get near the female any other way on legitimate business, I can always ask to see her on the grounds that I would like to apologize again."

"Perhaps you should take her a gift," M'rek suggested. "Some decorative little bauble, say, a piece of jewelry. Have a locator spell put on it before you give it to her."

"A truly inspired idea, oh glorious Lord," Kraj replied, fawning at his feet. "Then, she shall be there for the taking."

"Tell her also that by our customs she must keep it upon her person," M'rek added. "As proof that she truly forgives your insolence."

"As my Lord so commands." Kraj bowed and went out.