Hello, Everyone!
Wow. Two weeks in a row. I must be getting better!
Next chapter out next Tuesday, I hope!
Here is chapter five of Meant to Be. A little bit of sappy, a little bit of sweet, and a shot of our old friends Luke and Drac.
Enjoy! Please give me feedback! I definitely want to know what you think!
*Cheery Vibes*, Nimue
Title: New Soul (Chapter Five of Meant to Be)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG -13
Pairing Buffy/Spike. Most major characters included.
Feedback: Yes, please
For instant notification of fic releases, straight to your mailbox, please visit Always_Everyday@yahoogroups.com
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing. (With, of course, the exception of Emma and William, who belong to Buffy and Spike)
Summary: Spike muses on life with his family. The Queen and King of the Sky discuss the new soul to be sent to the One. Meanwhile, the Evil Ones discover what is going on up above and just might catch a break from the Powers that Be. Emma and Will shock their father with news of their own.
New Soul
Spike woke up slowly. The kids weren't back yet and the house was silent, even to his sensitive ears. It was peaceful. Calm. Beautiful.
The morning sun spilled in the window, lighting her in pale yellow and rose, like a goddess. She slept soundly, her body curled against his and her head resting on his shoulder.
She was a goddess. A Chosen One. A Saviour. But to him, she was more. More than any prophesy or any lifetime or any one *thing*. She was all, and his and love and life and perfection. Even when her hair was a mess and she was covered in demon goo. She was his One True Love.
Slowly, he rolled on his side to look at her. Sweet, soft smile on her pouty lips. His hands traced the contours of her body. Remembering it. Feeling the softness of the skin of her shoulders, her arms. How could something so small and soft be so strong and powerful? Didn't matter, he thought, smiling himself. She was. She was his and she was wonderful.
His gentle touches slid down her chest. Her ribs. Resting on her stomach. She sighed gently and scooted in closer to him, kissing his chest in her sleep. Something inside of him that he hadn't realized was empty, filled with joy. He had given her what she wanted, despite the odds. Spike knew that, even if there was no way to know. He'd been given what *he* wanted as well. Her happiness. Another child. Theirs. A piece of him mingling with a piece of her to create a being that would be all of them. And would carry on their legacy, their great love, even when the One was no more.
The thought was overwhelming. Even now. Even having been through it twice already. It was still utterly amazing to him that she would have him, never mind love him, or want to bear his children. The Victorian poet, that was now his son, rose inside of him, nearly weeping at the perfection of it all. The way his life had gone from beast to beauty.
Nothing could destroy this. Nothing.
~~~~~~
The Queen propped her head against the enormous, white pillows. Well, to her they were pillows, although anyone else might have seen clouds.
Her King lay next to her, softly touching her golden skin. Adoring her every inch as she lay on silken sheets in the early morning sun. Even as Queen of the Sky, goddess of the Heavens, she had no idea how beautiful she was. No idea how perfect. It seemed that it was not only the mortal world that could sometimes ignore that which was part of them. Even the gods were sometimes oblivious.
"What is on your mind, my Queen?" The king asked, shifting until they lay face to face on the pillows.
She smiled, placing her palm against his cheek. "The seed has been sown for the next child of the One," she began, watching his blue eyes glisten in the sunlight. "I am just wondering if I did the right thing."
"You are a goddess, my love. There is no wrong. There is only your word," he answered, trying to brush the worry from her face with gentle hands.
"I do not always feel as confident as you, dearest. I just worry that there is something.." She stopped, biting her lip as she thought. "Something that I am missing."
The King sighed, pressing his lips to her forehead. "My sweet, even if there is, I've no doubt that between our child and the One, they can overcome whatever harm that may come. We have waited for thousands of years for the time to be right, for the Slayer and Vampire to unite and for Peace to be born. Their destinies will be challenged, but I trust them to overcome. Do not fret, my love."
The Queen smiled, returning the kiss to her mate. "You were a worthy choice in companion," she said softly. "A good King. A perfect love."
"Only to you, my Queen. To all else, I am half of a god. A bastard mortal," he answered, looking away.
Slowly, the Queen raised his chin with her hand. "Do not ever say that in my presence. You are a god. My choice in ruler of the sky at my side. It matters not that you were born of goddess and man. You've earned your place at my side."
The King sighed. "But my mortal father."
"Is a wonderful man and one of our best emissaries. He's been granted immortality for his service to the court. Never begrudge him," the Queen snapped, pulling him closer to her even in her anger. The King relented, falling against her bosom and breathing deeply as she stroked his hair. "Now," the Queen began again. "On to better subjects. Who do you think we should send to the One as their newest soul?"
The King traced circles on his Queen's golden skin and thought. "We could allow the Fates to choose this time."
The Queen chuckled in response. "Cirrus, those women have enough control over the One as it stands. Let us at least choose one for them!"
He laughed at her indignation. "All right then, what are you thinking?"
Silence fell as she thought. "There are so many that they have lost and we have the power to return. But I think there is only one whose absence pierces both of their hearts."
"And who is that, my love?" The King asked as he kissed her soft cheek.
"Her mother."
~~~~~~~
The sound of the door swinging open and slamming shut awoke him from his near slumber. The man wrapping him in sheets of pale green kept upon his task as if nothing had happened. As if there was never the boom of the heavy red door, never the click of heels on the tile followed by the heavy tap of men's shoes. Never the sudden horrid, dry cough piercing the incensed air.
"Lucifer?" The deep, eternally angry, voice boomed.
Luke turned his head from the table on which he was stretched and saw Draconius, his mate in her more vixen-ish, less hag-ish form, standing next to him. Luke dropped his head back onto the table and grunted.
"Can't this wait? You're interrupting my kelp wrap!" The Hell God whined as the burly man continued his work uninterrupted.
"No," Draconius answered simply. "It cannot."
"We've got news," Lenora purred, walking closer to the naked form of the man on the table and inspecting him. "Not bad," she whispered, her face inches from his ear.
Luke squirmed, trying to ignore the purr, the soft, feminine scent, but his body betrayed him and the muscled man stepped away. "Oh, get out, Hans. We can finish later."
Hans nodded mutely and plodded out of the room as Draconius pulled up a chair and Lenora prowled in circles around the table.
"So, what's so important that you have to scare away the help?" Luke whined, turning on to his stomach and facing Draconius.
"I think it was you, Kitten, who scared away the help," Lenora sighed, her finger grazing his shoulder. She brought the finger to her lips sensuously. "Mmm, salty."
"Oh, enough, woman," Draconius snapped. "Just because the triple breasted whore of Moravia kissed me doesn't mean you have to lose all sense of decorum."
Lenora shot him an evil look and paced back to the wall, arms crossed defensively over her chest. "If you weren't such a tease," she sighed, the anger barely hidden.
"As much as I love the little Hell hate-fest, can you please get on with it before I start to itch," Luke complained.
"Yes, yes," Draconius answered, pulling a cigar from his pocket and lighting it from a flame arising out of the tip of his finger. A neat trick he'd learned in his years at La Maison Rouge. "Lenora sensed that the One has changed."
"Changed?" Luke asked, beginning to scratch his leg. "How? And how is that anywhere *near* as important as good skin?"
"She is pregnant," Lenora answered, prowling back into Luke's field of vision.
"Well, ain't she just the kitten factory?" The Hell god snarked, his fingers working harder against the back of his thigh as the seaweed tightened on his skin. "So, what does that have to do with the price of sex in the red light district?"
Draconius smiled. "Well, a few things. Obviously, the One is easier to physically overcome once the Slayer becomes heavy with child."
"Yeah, well, hasn't seemed to stop her from sending me business," Luke answered, annoyed. "Just makes that little Vampire of hers more protective and all agitated when anyone comes near her. Besides, she outsmarted me when she was about to burst."
"A rabid monkey with one brain cell could outsmart you," Draconius commented, taking a draw from his cigar. "But there is more."
"If you're done insulting your host, I might listen," Luke answered, his hand now furiously scraping at his bottom. "But hurry up before I have to have plastic surgery to fix the scabs on my legs."
"Fine, fine," the Old One brooded. "Lenora sent a little spell up to the Powers that Be. At least to the Powers that Be helping the One."
"Ah, the Sky Queen," Luke mused. "Now *there's* a hottie. Was she naked?"
"No," Lenora answered. "But she was discussing the soul with which to imbue the One's newest addition."
"Not going to let the old Fates handle it?" Luke asked.
Draconius sighed heavily. Having a conversation with Lucifer, he thought, was closely akin to teaching arithmetic to a wall. "No," he replied. "If you *think* about it, my dear host, the Queen needs to be in control of all who are near to the Peacemaker. She would never allow the randomness of the Fates to govern such a decision."
"Then who?" Luke asked. "And why does it matter?"
"The mother," Lenora replied, sitting on the arm of Draconius's chair, but careful not to touch him.
Lucifer furrowed his brow. "What mother? I mean, I thought that the Mother that was with them at the First was already there and popping out kittens of her own with the Father?"
Another long sigh from the Old One. "No, Lucifer. *Her* mother. Joyce? The *Pawn*?"
"Oh, the chick we sent after them a few years back?" Luke questioned as a light bulb went off in his head. "Wow, that's weird."
"And quite fortuitous," Draconius added, smiling.
"For-who?" Luke whined, now bleeding from clawing at the drying seaweed and flopping around on the table like a grounded fish.
"Lucky," Lenora answered. "As we had her in our control in the past, marked her, even for a time, I think I know a way to have her spirit marked again and have her born to the One while under our control."
"Ooh!" Luke cried excitedly. "Like Hell Spawn?"
"Not quite," Draconius said, his voice barely hiding the agitation. "She will be brought unto them like any other human child. Gaining their trust and love. And when the time is right, and they think they have nothing to fear, we activate the child and destroy the One from within. Then go after the Peacemaker."
"That's a little. devious," the wrapped creature on the table snarled, a smile breaking at the end. "Think we got the stuff to do it?"
Draconius nodded slowly. "I think we may just have caught a lucky break courtesy of the Goddess herself."
~~~~~
Spike was busy at the stove making pancakes when the front door burst open and the thunder of feet pounded through the living room and into the kitchen. He stepped away from the stove so that the inevitable tackle wouldn't end up setting any of them ablaze.
Before he could finish the thought, Emma peeled around the corner, Will at her heels, and launched into the air, catching her dad around the waist with her legs as Will grabbed onto his leg.
"Think they missed you," Takina said, smiling from the kitchen doorway.
Spike kissed Emma's forehead. "Missed the Mites as well," he answered, ruffling Will's hair. "Have a good night?"
"They were great," Takina answered.
"We watch'd Lazy and the Twamp," Will announced, looking up with huge blue eyes.
"Pups eating pasta," Spike commented, nodding sagely. "Always a hit."
"And they kkkkiiiissssseeeedddd," Emma drew out. "Like you and mommy do."
"Us?" Spike joked, setting the little girl down on the floor. "Never."
"You tiss all de time," Will commented making a puckery face. Emma squinched her nose.
"Just. your mum likes it, is all," Spike answered slyly. His eyes rose to Takina's. "Stay for breakfast?"
"Nope, got my own cooking man at home," she answered cheerfully. "But soon."
"Right then. Tell the git I said. bugger off," Spike commented, a smile on his face as he lifted Will into a chair and Emma sat down across from him.
"I'll be sure to do that," Takina laughed, backing out of the doorway. "Tell Buffy hi."
"Right," Spike answered, tossing a little wave towards the doctor as he flipped pancakes from the griddle to the kids' plates, a distance of at least five feet, without missing one, to the great pleasure of his progeny.
"Where's mummy?" Will asked, digging into his pancake with chubby palms holding the fork like a dagger.
"Asleep, still," Spike answered, watching the smug smile on Emma's face. She knew something, little blighter, but she wasn't going to fess up. Spike could read it in her angelic face. "What's with you, Mite?"
"Nothin'," her lyrical voice answered as she shoved more pancake into her pretty little mouth.
"Can't lie to me," he laughed, poking her in the side and making her giggle.
"Not lying," Emma answered, still smiling.
"Then what, Mite? What's the grin all about, then?" Spike asked, making a plate piled high with pancakes for Buffy as he worked through his own and watched the two kids scarf down food as if they'd been tied to a stake in the desert for a year with nothing to eat or drink.
"I can't tell you," Emma sang, thinking of her visit to her first home the night before."
Spike quirked an eyebrow and looked at Will. The little boy shrugged and went back to spearing his pancakes. There was something. Emma was hiding something. That worried him.
Emma felt her father's mood shift from joy to concern and decided that maybe she should come clean. After all, she'd made a special trip for them, why destroy her own work? "It's okay, Daddy."
Spike smiled, smoothing her beautiful blonde hair down her back. "What is, Mite?"
"We be happy with mummy's new baby," Will said nonchalantly, shoveling pancakes into his mouth. Both Spike and Emma's heads spun so fast that they both almost fell off their chairs
"What?" Father and daughter said in unison.
Will shrugged again. "Mummy's new baby. Saw it in a dream last night."
Emma smiled, reaching over and helping Will cut up a particularly big chunk of pancake. "Better be a girl," Emma said, immediately dropping the shock of the moment and going on with their breakfast.
Spike watched in slack-jawed awe at his children. One would bring Peace to all dimensions. The other was starting to see what lies ahead. Part of Spike wondered what the next one might bring.
To be contd.
Wow. Two weeks in a row. I must be getting better!
Next chapter out next Tuesday, I hope!
Here is chapter five of Meant to Be. A little bit of sappy, a little bit of sweet, and a shot of our old friends Luke and Drac.
Enjoy! Please give me feedback! I definitely want to know what you think!
*Cheery Vibes*, Nimue
Title: New Soul (Chapter Five of Meant to Be)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG -13
Pairing Buffy/Spike. Most major characters included.
Feedback: Yes, please
For instant notification of fic releases, straight to your mailbox, please visit Always_Everyday@yahoogroups.com
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing. (With, of course, the exception of Emma and William, who belong to Buffy and Spike)
Summary: Spike muses on life with his family. The Queen and King of the Sky discuss the new soul to be sent to the One. Meanwhile, the Evil Ones discover what is going on up above and just might catch a break from the Powers that Be. Emma and Will shock their father with news of their own.
New Soul
Spike woke up slowly. The kids weren't back yet and the house was silent, even to his sensitive ears. It was peaceful. Calm. Beautiful.
The morning sun spilled in the window, lighting her in pale yellow and rose, like a goddess. She slept soundly, her body curled against his and her head resting on his shoulder.
She was a goddess. A Chosen One. A Saviour. But to him, she was more. More than any prophesy or any lifetime or any one *thing*. She was all, and his and love and life and perfection. Even when her hair was a mess and she was covered in demon goo. She was his One True Love.
Slowly, he rolled on his side to look at her. Sweet, soft smile on her pouty lips. His hands traced the contours of her body. Remembering it. Feeling the softness of the skin of her shoulders, her arms. How could something so small and soft be so strong and powerful? Didn't matter, he thought, smiling himself. She was. She was his and she was wonderful.
His gentle touches slid down her chest. Her ribs. Resting on her stomach. She sighed gently and scooted in closer to him, kissing his chest in her sleep. Something inside of him that he hadn't realized was empty, filled with joy. He had given her what she wanted, despite the odds. Spike knew that, even if there was no way to know. He'd been given what *he* wanted as well. Her happiness. Another child. Theirs. A piece of him mingling with a piece of her to create a being that would be all of them. And would carry on their legacy, their great love, even when the One was no more.
The thought was overwhelming. Even now. Even having been through it twice already. It was still utterly amazing to him that she would have him, never mind love him, or want to bear his children. The Victorian poet, that was now his son, rose inside of him, nearly weeping at the perfection of it all. The way his life had gone from beast to beauty.
Nothing could destroy this. Nothing.
~~~~~~
The Queen propped her head against the enormous, white pillows. Well, to her they were pillows, although anyone else might have seen clouds.
Her King lay next to her, softly touching her golden skin. Adoring her every inch as she lay on silken sheets in the early morning sun. Even as Queen of the Sky, goddess of the Heavens, she had no idea how beautiful she was. No idea how perfect. It seemed that it was not only the mortal world that could sometimes ignore that which was part of them. Even the gods were sometimes oblivious.
"What is on your mind, my Queen?" The king asked, shifting until they lay face to face on the pillows.
She smiled, placing her palm against his cheek. "The seed has been sown for the next child of the One," she began, watching his blue eyes glisten in the sunlight. "I am just wondering if I did the right thing."
"You are a goddess, my love. There is no wrong. There is only your word," he answered, trying to brush the worry from her face with gentle hands.
"I do not always feel as confident as you, dearest. I just worry that there is something.." She stopped, biting her lip as she thought. "Something that I am missing."
The King sighed, pressing his lips to her forehead. "My sweet, even if there is, I've no doubt that between our child and the One, they can overcome whatever harm that may come. We have waited for thousands of years for the time to be right, for the Slayer and Vampire to unite and for Peace to be born. Their destinies will be challenged, but I trust them to overcome. Do not fret, my love."
The Queen smiled, returning the kiss to her mate. "You were a worthy choice in companion," she said softly. "A good King. A perfect love."
"Only to you, my Queen. To all else, I am half of a god. A bastard mortal," he answered, looking away.
Slowly, the Queen raised his chin with her hand. "Do not ever say that in my presence. You are a god. My choice in ruler of the sky at my side. It matters not that you were born of goddess and man. You've earned your place at my side."
The King sighed. "But my mortal father."
"Is a wonderful man and one of our best emissaries. He's been granted immortality for his service to the court. Never begrudge him," the Queen snapped, pulling him closer to her even in her anger. The King relented, falling against her bosom and breathing deeply as she stroked his hair. "Now," the Queen began again. "On to better subjects. Who do you think we should send to the One as their newest soul?"
The King traced circles on his Queen's golden skin and thought. "We could allow the Fates to choose this time."
The Queen chuckled in response. "Cirrus, those women have enough control over the One as it stands. Let us at least choose one for them!"
He laughed at her indignation. "All right then, what are you thinking?"
Silence fell as she thought. "There are so many that they have lost and we have the power to return. But I think there is only one whose absence pierces both of their hearts."
"And who is that, my love?" The King asked as he kissed her soft cheek.
"Her mother."
~~~~~~~
The sound of the door swinging open and slamming shut awoke him from his near slumber. The man wrapping him in sheets of pale green kept upon his task as if nothing had happened. As if there was never the boom of the heavy red door, never the click of heels on the tile followed by the heavy tap of men's shoes. Never the sudden horrid, dry cough piercing the incensed air.
"Lucifer?" The deep, eternally angry, voice boomed.
Luke turned his head from the table on which he was stretched and saw Draconius, his mate in her more vixen-ish, less hag-ish form, standing next to him. Luke dropped his head back onto the table and grunted.
"Can't this wait? You're interrupting my kelp wrap!" The Hell God whined as the burly man continued his work uninterrupted.
"No," Draconius answered simply. "It cannot."
"We've got news," Lenora purred, walking closer to the naked form of the man on the table and inspecting him. "Not bad," she whispered, her face inches from his ear.
Luke squirmed, trying to ignore the purr, the soft, feminine scent, but his body betrayed him and the muscled man stepped away. "Oh, get out, Hans. We can finish later."
Hans nodded mutely and plodded out of the room as Draconius pulled up a chair and Lenora prowled in circles around the table.
"So, what's so important that you have to scare away the help?" Luke whined, turning on to his stomach and facing Draconius.
"I think it was you, Kitten, who scared away the help," Lenora sighed, her finger grazing his shoulder. She brought the finger to her lips sensuously. "Mmm, salty."
"Oh, enough, woman," Draconius snapped. "Just because the triple breasted whore of Moravia kissed me doesn't mean you have to lose all sense of decorum."
Lenora shot him an evil look and paced back to the wall, arms crossed defensively over her chest. "If you weren't such a tease," she sighed, the anger barely hidden.
"As much as I love the little Hell hate-fest, can you please get on with it before I start to itch," Luke complained.
"Yes, yes," Draconius answered, pulling a cigar from his pocket and lighting it from a flame arising out of the tip of his finger. A neat trick he'd learned in his years at La Maison Rouge. "Lenora sensed that the One has changed."
"Changed?" Luke asked, beginning to scratch his leg. "How? And how is that anywhere *near* as important as good skin?"
"She is pregnant," Lenora answered, prowling back into Luke's field of vision.
"Well, ain't she just the kitten factory?" The Hell god snarked, his fingers working harder against the back of his thigh as the seaweed tightened on his skin. "So, what does that have to do with the price of sex in the red light district?"
Draconius smiled. "Well, a few things. Obviously, the One is easier to physically overcome once the Slayer becomes heavy with child."
"Yeah, well, hasn't seemed to stop her from sending me business," Luke answered, annoyed. "Just makes that little Vampire of hers more protective and all agitated when anyone comes near her. Besides, she outsmarted me when she was about to burst."
"A rabid monkey with one brain cell could outsmart you," Draconius commented, taking a draw from his cigar. "But there is more."
"If you're done insulting your host, I might listen," Luke answered, his hand now furiously scraping at his bottom. "But hurry up before I have to have plastic surgery to fix the scabs on my legs."
"Fine, fine," the Old One brooded. "Lenora sent a little spell up to the Powers that Be. At least to the Powers that Be helping the One."
"Ah, the Sky Queen," Luke mused. "Now *there's* a hottie. Was she naked?"
"No," Lenora answered. "But she was discussing the soul with which to imbue the One's newest addition."
"Not going to let the old Fates handle it?" Luke asked.
Draconius sighed heavily. Having a conversation with Lucifer, he thought, was closely akin to teaching arithmetic to a wall. "No," he replied. "If you *think* about it, my dear host, the Queen needs to be in control of all who are near to the Peacemaker. She would never allow the randomness of the Fates to govern such a decision."
"Then who?" Luke asked. "And why does it matter?"
"The mother," Lenora replied, sitting on the arm of Draconius's chair, but careful not to touch him.
Lucifer furrowed his brow. "What mother? I mean, I thought that the Mother that was with them at the First was already there and popping out kittens of her own with the Father?"
Another long sigh from the Old One. "No, Lucifer. *Her* mother. Joyce? The *Pawn*?"
"Oh, the chick we sent after them a few years back?" Luke questioned as a light bulb went off in his head. "Wow, that's weird."
"And quite fortuitous," Draconius added, smiling.
"For-who?" Luke whined, now bleeding from clawing at the drying seaweed and flopping around on the table like a grounded fish.
"Lucky," Lenora answered. "As we had her in our control in the past, marked her, even for a time, I think I know a way to have her spirit marked again and have her born to the One while under our control."
"Ooh!" Luke cried excitedly. "Like Hell Spawn?"
"Not quite," Draconius said, his voice barely hiding the agitation. "She will be brought unto them like any other human child. Gaining their trust and love. And when the time is right, and they think they have nothing to fear, we activate the child and destroy the One from within. Then go after the Peacemaker."
"That's a little. devious," the wrapped creature on the table snarled, a smile breaking at the end. "Think we got the stuff to do it?"
Draconius nodded slowly. "I think we may just have caught a lucky break courtesy of the Goddess herself."
~~~~~
Spike was busy at the stove making pancakes when the front door burst open and the thunder of feet pounded through the living room and into the kitchen. He stepped away from the stove so that the inevitable tackle wouldn't end up setting any of them ablaze.
Before he could finish the thought, Emma peeled around the corner, Will at her heels, and launched into the air, catching her dad around the waist with her legs as Will grabbed onto his leg.
"Think they missed you," Takina said, smiling from the kitchen doorway.
Spike kissed Emma's forehead. "Missed the Mites as well," he answered, ruffling Will's hair. "Have a good night?"
"They were great," Takina answered.
"We watch'd Lazy and the Twamp," Will announced, looking up with huge blue eyes.
"Pups eating pasta," Spike commented, nodding sagely. "Always a hit."
"And they kkkkiiiissssseeeedddd," Emma drew out. "Like you and mommy do."
"Us?" Spike joked, setting the little girl down on the floor. "Never."
"You tiss all de time," Will commented making a puckery face. Emma squinched her nose.
"Just. your mum likes it, is all," Spike answered slyly. His eyes rose to Takina's. "Stay for breakfast?"
"Nope, got my own cooking man at home," she answered cheerfully. "But soon."
"Right then. Tell the git I said. bugger off," Spike commented, a smile on his face as he lifted Will into a chair and Emma sat down across from him.
"I'll be sure to do that," Takina laughed, backing out of the doorway. "Tell Buffy hi."
"Right," Spike answered, tossing a little wave towards the doctor as he flipped pancakes from the griddle to the kids' plates, a distance of at least five feet, without missing one, to the great pleasure of his progeny.
"Where's mummy?" Will asked, digging into his pancake with chubby palms holding the fork like a dagger.
"Asleep, still," Spike answered, watching the smug smile on Emma's face. She knew something, little blighter, but she wasn't going to fess up. Spike could read it in her angelic face. "What's with you, Mite?"
"Nothin'," her lyrical voice answered as she shoved more pancake into her pretty little mouth.
"Can't lie to me," he laughed, poking her in the side and making her giggle.
"Not lying," Emma answered, still smiling.
"Then what, Mite? What's the grin all about, then?" Spike asked, making a plate piled high with pancakes for Buffy as he worked through his own and watched the two kids scarf down food as if they'd been tied to a stake in the desert for a year with nothing to eat or drink.
"I can't tell you," Emma sang, thinking of her visit to her first home the night before."
Spike quirked an eyebrow and looked at Will. The little boy shrugged and went back to spearing his pancakes. There was something. Emma was hiding something. That worried him.
Emma felt her father's mood shift from joy to concern and decided that maybe she should come clean. After all, she'd made a special trip for them, why destroy her own work? "It's okay, Daddy."
Spike smiled, smoothing her beautiful blonde hair down her back. "What is, Mite?"
"We be happy with mummy's new baby," Will said nonchalantly, shoveling pancakes into his mouth. Both Spike and Emma's heads spun so fast that they both almost fell off their chairs
"What?" Father and daughter said in unison.
Will shrugged again. "Mummy's new baby. Saw it in a dream last night."
Emma smiled, reaching over and helping Will cut up a particularly big chunk of pancake. "Better be a girl," Emma said, immediately dropping the shock of the moment and going on with their breakfast.
Spike watched in slack-jawed awe at his children. One would bring Peace to all dimensions. The other was starting to see what lies ahead. Part of Spike wondered what the next one might bring.
To be contd.