Chapter Two

Disclaimer: The characters still belong to Joss. And since it looks like he's not giving them to me any time soon (sigh), I still have to disclaim this. So I'm saying it and I probably will say it again: These characters are not mine; they are Joss's. On another note, sorry this took so long. Hell at home and was running out of ideas. If it sucks, that is why.

"Well," Buffy asked impatiently, her glare drifting back and forth between the vengeance demon and the vampire. "Is either one of you going to explain this chaos or what?" The Slayer folded her arms across her chest, covering up the large red Superman logo she had printed on her dark blue shirt. She frowned again, shooting Spike expectant looks.

Xander quickly caught on to Anya's discomfort. "Buff, ease up," he commanded, though all his attention was on Anya. He smiled, walking closer to her, putting one gentle hand on her shoulder, drawing in her attention. "Okay, I know how babies are made, but I'm wondering isÉhow?" he asked, gesturing down at the little boy with a tilt of his head. "And who the father is? It's not me, is it?"

He was hoping that he was the father. It would give him a good reason to convince Anya to come back in his life. A good way to reunite the two of them, so that he might make things right. The two of them would get married and lead the perfect life they were meant to have.

The words coming from Anya's mouth definitely were not something he was expecting.

"It's not you," she admitted, her voice a whisper as though she were ashamed of the child.

"Good," Xander responded without listening to the words being spoken. "Wait, what?" he asked a moment later, snapping out of his fantasy of a perfect life and hitting reality hard.

"Spike's the father," Anya whispered, her head lowering as her attention was focused on her heeled black boots.

"WHAT?" The yells coming from both Buffy and Xander caused the young Joseph to wake up with a squeal, his crying the only thing heard a moment later. Anya groaned as she began rocking the tiny boy, hoping to get him to fall back asleep.

"Spike," Buffy demanded, turning to her on-again, off-again boyfriend, if she were to venture that far. Well, before she would. Now, with the baby and everything, she wasn't sure. "Is this true?" she asked, still keeping the demanding one of voice up as she faced Spike, stake held tightly in her left hand, ready to kill the vampire if necessary.

"Well, is it?" she asked after a moment of silence.

After exchanging a quick look, Anya and Spike both sighed, looking over at Buffy. "Yes," Spike admitted, walking over to his Slayer. "That boy in Anya's arms is in fact my son, um, Jacob."

"Joseph," Anya instantly corrected as she continued rocking the infant.

"Right," Spike replied dismissively as he hurried across the crypt, getting to Buffy. Though the Slayer tried to turn away, Spike stopped her. Using his left hand, he held her head gently, but at the same time forcing her to look his way. "But it was a long time ago," he assured her. "I still love you."

"Really? 'Cause the evidence isn't favoring that," Buffy argued bitterly. She couldn't take this. Her boyfriend, yes she dared to venture that far in his title, was not supposed to go off and have a child with her best friend's ex- fiancŽe. Things weren't supposed to be that way.

But, then again, when have things in Sunnydale, the home of the Hellmouth, ever gone the way they were supposed to? Not so much.

Spike groaned loudly. Timing really was not in his favor, he pointed out to himself as he wondered what he had done to piss the Powers That Be off so much to make them so something like this to him? He sighed, shrugging that note off as he focused on Buffy. "Look, I love you. I've lived, or unlived, for a very long time. And in all those years, I've only loved one person."

"That would be me, right?" Buffy asked cagily.

Spike nodded solemnly. "Demon Girl just told me the news a few minutes before you walked in on us," he added, speaking the truth with hopes that Buffy would believe it. "I swear I hadn't known since that moment."

Anya nodded in agreement. "I couldn't tell him. Or anyone." She sighed, turning to Xander so that he would know she was talking to him without her quite meeting his eyes. "Especially you. She paused as she gathered up the courage that would allow her to get the next four words out. Though they were four simple words, only one syllable and on a pretty basic vocabulary level, they were the hardest words she would ever have to speak. Even worse if D'Hoffryn ever found out. "I still love you."

"Well, that's just great!" Xander shouted out angrily. The amount of sound he used caused the young infant to start screaming once more, his scream piercing the crypt. Xander sighed heavily as he began pacing around the near empty crypt, trying to clear his head, or think of something else to say. He couldn't.

"Look, Xander," Anya began softly, handing Joseph over to Spike as she took a few steps closer to Xander, hoping to calm him down or something.

"Look at what?" Xander yelled out at her angrily. "Look at your new sex life? The son you had with Spike? My life turning drastically into crap, more than it had before?"

"This isn't exactly how I envisioned my first child either," Anya responded in her defense. "I wanted it to be with you, but obviously you didn't."

"I do!" Xander screeched back at her as Spike handed the screaming child back to Anya. For his own safety, Spike figured it would be best to leave. Tiptoeing his way across the crypt, he attempted to leave. "Hold it right there," Xander commanded sternly, walking over to Spike, picking up his fallen stake as he did such, ready to dust the vampire good and proper for touching his girl. Something he should have done a long time ago.

"Woah," Buffy intervened, quickly rushing to stand in front of Spike just as Xander's stake landed in her left shoulder, what would have been Spike's heart if she had not been there. She could not see it exactly, but she could feel droplets of blood slipping out through the small wound as Xander pulled the stake back.

"Buffy!" Spike yelled, quickly turning the Slayer around so he could take a closer look at things, glaring at the shocked Xander as he did such. "Move your hand," he commanded gently as Buffy obeyed, dropping her hand to the side of her petite body, allowing Spike to examine her shoulder better for a second.

"Is she ok?" Xander asked, suddenly growing very worried. This was not his intention. It never was. "Is she gonna be" The words would not form in his mouth, no matter how hard he wanted them to. Although he couldn't have stopped what he did, he still couldn't help but feel bad for doing it. Buffy was hurt, partially because of him. Or to the casual observer, entirely because of him.

"I'll be fine," she replied coldly, as Spike guided her over to the chair he had been sitting on earlier. Before all the chaos had started. Sitting down, she grabbed her shirt by the collar, moving it out of the way to allow Spike to take a closer look at things.

Ever so dutifully, Spike sighed, handing her a folded up paper towel to stop the bleeding. Although it was at a minimum, if left unattended for the period of time it would take to get back to Buffy's, it would not be good. "Alright, I'm taking you home," he added a second later, standing up as he began guiding Buffy to the door. "You'll see yourselves out," he added harshly, glancing back at Anya and Xander for a brief moment before getting out the door, slowly making his way across the cemetery to 1630 Revello Drive.

"When were you planning on telling me this?" Xander asked angrily, breaking off the silence in the crypt as he turned back around to face Anya and the baby.

"I'm telling you now." What was once Anya's gentle tone of voice was replaced by a hostile tone.

"Who else knows?" he demanded, his arms folding over his shirt in frustration.

"Just Hallie," she whispered under her breath. "And, obviously, the doctors," she added quickly. "I swear, I was just over here to tell Spike the newsÉI would have called him, but he has no phone."

"So Spike gets to find out before me?" Xander spat out angrily. "Where is the logic in that?" he yelled at her.

"The logic is that Spike is the father of this guy and you are not!" Anya yelled back at him. For the first time since he had been born, Anya frankly didn't give a damn to whether or not Joseph was crying.

Xander nodded, realizing that her point did make sense, anger had just clouded his judgment. "Alright," he said after taking a deep calming breath. "Why didn't I know?" he asked him a moment later.

"Because I was afraid of the look you'd get on your face when you found out," she answered him honestly. "Xander, I still love you and I know this would only upset you."

"Good guess."

"Damn it Xander!" she yelled. "I'm trying to make things better, ok? Between the two of us, but obviously they can't be."

He sighed heavily, walking over to her. "Alright, we've both made stupid mistakes, one leading to anotherÉI don't want to make things worse, but I do need a little bit of time," he told her honestly, his brown eyes meeting hers. "I'll call you, ok?" he asked as she nodded. "And for now, we should get out of here."

"In a minute," she responded. "He's hungry," she added a moment later as she walked over, sitting down on Spike's TV chair as she began to fiddle with her shirt and bra.

"Alright," Xander said as he sat down in a chair opposite Anya. "Whenever."

"You don't have to wait for me," she told him.

"I know, but it's dark outside and we're right next to a cemetery. I don't want you and the baby to have to get home alone," he began.

"Thank you," Anya said, looking Xander in the eye with a slight smile. Things might actually be able to work for them, she thought happily.