Good evening, all.

Sorry this chapter is a little late, but things are still rather insane at Chez Nim, West Coast campus. Thanks to all of you who have sent your wishes to my roommate. I've passed them all along. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Hoping to keep up the steady chapter a week trickle, although I can't promise what with the whole hectic thing. But I will do my best.

The real angst is coming soon, so enjoy the pseudo-angst while it lasts.


Let me know what you think!

Kindness,

Nimue

"All that we see or seem,

Is but a dream within a dream" - Edgar Allan Poe

A quick, additional note. I know the chapters have not been showing up. I'm trying guys! I've posted this a grand total of EIGHT times so far in two different formats. If you still cannot find the story in it's entirety, please visit:

.livejournal (dot) com/users/nimuetucker/

Title: Plan B (Chapter Twenty-three - Meant to Be)

Author: Nimue

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Spike/Buffy (Most major characters included)

Feedback: Yes, please

Summary: Spike tells Buffy of her Watcher's Plan B. They have one last night alone together. How will they spend it?

Plan B

"So," Buffy said, walking onto the back porch and shutting the door behind her. The kids were now properly in their beds, their guests all gone and just she and Spike still awake in the wee hours of the morning. "Guess we're having a shindig tomorrow."

Spike took another drag of his cigarette. Giles had left the pack when he and Anya took their leave. The Watcher said it was to save himself from the wrath of his lady. Spike knew it was because Giles thought he might need one or two after this conversation with Buffy. And maybe one before. And during. Surely she was likely to be more upset about what he had to say than the temporary revival of a nasty habit.

"Seems we are, Pet," Spike answered, his back to her, standing on the top step and looking out over the yard like a king surveying his lands. He could feel the tension knotting his shoulders. Desperately, he wanted Buffy to just… hold him and make this stop. Selfish, really, he thought. But what he wanted nonetheless.

Alas, there was work to be done. Seems the One had many benefits, but having things come easily did not seem to be among them.

"Back to the old lung strangling?" Buffy nagged half heartedly, waving her hand in front of her face in an over-dramatic gesture. She walked slowly to his side, her tennis shoes quiet against the wood of the deck. "You know, you actually *need* those lungs now."

He nodded, not saying anything, but stubbing the butt out on the porch railing and shoving the filter into the pocket of his jeans. Wasn't worth creating something stupid to bicker about when he knew that they had plenty of bigger thorns to prickle their sides. "Sorry, Love. Some habits…"

Buffy nodded, surprisingly unwilling to engage in the normal banter on the subject, and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Just… I have enough to worry about without a sick Vampire, okay?"

Again Spike nodded, letting his head fall on top of hers and taking a breath of fresh air. He wanted to stay like this for a while. Quiet. With the voices in his head and the thoughts weighing down his mind all banished by her scent and the feel of her soft, golden hair under his cheek.

Alas, there wasn't any more time to rest.

"We need to talk, Buffy."

She took a deep breath, not wanting to leave the peace of the moment, but knowing something was coming to disturb it. She had known since Giles had whisked Spike away from the meeting. It was not of the normal when her Watcher took her husband aside, and usually spelled 'Not Good" with a capital N… and a capital G. She'd been waiting for the aftermath ever since, torn between intense curiosity and complete and utter dread.

"I kinda thought," she resigned herself to saying.

Spike chuckled humourlessly, pushing himself away from her and taking a step down. He couldn't do this in the comfort of her embrace. It seemed… wrong. So, down the step. Turning to face her.

A breath. And then another. His mouth opening, thinking the better of it, and closing again. Spike was sure he looked like a large mouthed guppy landed outside its bowl.

"Something you're not gonna like much, Pet." It was the only way he could think of to begin. Truth. There was nothing much about this she would like, except the chance it may give them to protect their child. Both he and Giles were betting that that shot was going to be worth a whole lot more to her than the rest.

"Kinda figured that too," Buffy answered, sighing and lowering herself to sit on the top step. She looked up at him with shockingly docile eyes, considering she had to feel the torment in his mind. Like a lamb being led willingly to slaughter, trusting that the leader would bow out just in time and rescue her. A look, a feeling that Spike was not used to relating to in his love.

"You know," Buffy began again, "what with the Watcher who suddenly goes all non-talky to me and has a little private smoking conference with his once sworn enemy? I figured it couldn't be something that I'd be jumping for joy about. You know, like a big shoe shopping excursion or something?" A quirky, nervous smile twitched at the corner of her pretty coral mouth. Spike tried to return it, knowing that she was at least attempting to make this easier. But he had a feeling that the attempts would soon stop.

Again, Spike let out a nervous chuckle. "Right then, you found us out. Our plan to send you to Manolo Blahnik has been foiled by footwear demons and we can no longer offer you a buffet of sandals for your choosing."

Buffy smiled for real now. "You know Blahnik? This is the happiest moment of my *life*!" She threw her arms into the air in worship of the skies above, making Spike roll his eyes and crave another cigarette. It was almost tortuous that she was being so good hearted about this, thus far.

Maybe, somewhere, he thought, I want to be punished for what I'm about to do.

Spike's smile faded at that thought, taking Buffy's grin with him. He fiddled in his pocket, fingering the pack of cigarettes and wanting one like he hadn't for years. Damned human bodies with their addictions. "'Fraid it's not quite that simple, Pet."

"I know," she answered, sighing and letting her arms drop back to her lap, her hands clasping in front of her. "So, what was it?"

Spike fidgeted, that familiar feeling of dread creeping into his chest and spreading. "Watcher wanted to try and talk me into something, is all," he finally said quietly.

Again, she sighed. "I have a feeling that there's a little more to it than that," Buffy stated flatly. "Did he win? Because he's really good at it…"

He nodded once, and then trained his eyes to the sky before muttering the next sentence. . "Less you can honestly tell me that you think it's a bad idea for reasons other than... it's a bad idea."

Looking at her was not even part of Spike's equation. The last thing he wanted was to see her face as he told her the plan. And deep down he *wanted* her to think of a reason that this was a bad idea, other than the aforementioned, and give him a way to stay by her side and fight.

"Okay, now you're beginning to talk like me, so I know something's up," Buffy commented, reaching out and taking his fidgeting hand from his pocket, wrapping it with her own. He lowered to a crouch in front of her, trying to stare at a spot on the side of the house instead of looking into those drowning green eyes. "So, are you going to tell me or are you going to force Giles to break his Slayer's heart?"

A pang ripped through Spike. She couldn't know. Could she? Would this break her heart? It wasn't meant to. Nothing romantic about it, or at least that's what he desperately hoped. Wouldn't she do anything to save their littlest? Wouldn't she expect him to? Not at the expense of her heart. Or even at its expense?

Spike was too torn for words. He closed his eyes. Took a breath. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened his eyes. Another breath. Back to being a guppy.

"Uh, sometime soon would be good? Me and junior the third are getting kinda tired," Buffy continued, trying to be light hearted, but feeling the dread begin to knot in the pit of her stomach and spreading rapidly to her every limb, weighing her down with invisible cinder blocks and pulling her heart to somewhere near her knees.

"Right. Best just get to the point," Spike began again, holding onto her hand like a life preserver and trying to at least pretend to be looking at her face. "Rupert's not so sure about the outcome of this meeting tomorrow. Thinks that even if the blokes all sit down and agree someone's likely to welch. Wants to make sure we have the bases covered, so he asked me… "Spike took another breath, searching for the easiest way to say the words. "He wants me to talk to some of Gwydion's former associates."

Buffy thought for a moment, her brow furrowed in confusion and frustration. . "Spike? Why should this be upsetting me? I mean, sounds like a good idea, other than the fact that it probably involves you being away, which wasn't on my top zillion things I want right now, but… it's just away. Right?"

"It does involve that." Spike answered, "Though not far, and hopefully, not long."

The creases in her brow deepened as she struggled to understand why this plan should be carrying the weight of the dread pulling her down, and why Spike was having so much trouble in the telling. Something told her, loud and clear, that she should be angry, or hurt, or both. Maybe it was the look on Spike's face – the combination of fear and anxiety with a little bit of 'I'm sorry', or the covert meeting between her husband and her Watcher – but something indicated severe emotion was in order. Something she couldn't find in what he was saying.

Best to get to the point, eh? "So, what aren't you telling me?" She finally asked.

'Bugger', Spike thought. 'Why do I always get to be the bringer of bad news? Maybe she won't take it wrong.' He hazarded a glance at her face. She'd been through too much not to know something was up, and she'd been hurt too many times before they'd been joined not to have a little of a jealous streak in her. It was in her eyes. She knew it was coming.

The razor blade in the apple.

His inner voice corrected his idea that maybe she would take it well, as he read the look on her face that was preemptively shifting from confusion to anger. 'Right. She's Buffy. A pregnant Buffy. Not good when you're 'bout to tell her that you're off to find your ex.'

"Spike?" Now she was annoyed at just the wait.

A long sigh. More of his now patented guppy impersonation. "Right then. One of Gwydion's closest associates in this dimension, while he was parading round in my father's skin, was… It was Dru, okay? And Rupert thinks it best we get as much information as we can on the bastard so we can fight him, and he asked me to talk to Drusilla because he thinks it most likely that I'd be able to get information out of her, and understand it if I did and…"

Buffy's eyes flared. "Drusilla?" An unnaturally long pause. "Like as in your not so stable sire, not to mention, oh, *lover* for a century?"

Again, she fell quiet, waiting for his words before she continued, anger and hurt gnawing at the back of her mind. Not to mention, the stab of jealousy and the grinding fear that maybe, just maybe, he'd fall back in love with her and never come home.

Spike looked at her, reading her thoughts, not through some special connection, but just as one wounded lover to another. "Yes, Love, Dru. Can't deny that she turned me. Can't deny that we… were. But she never owned my heart. Never shared my soul."

Buffy crossed her arms defensively over her chest, her nostrils flaring, looking all the world, to Spike, like Emma about to throw a tantrum. However, this wasn't Emma and not (at least most of the time) so easy to quell. This was his *mate*. Truly, his other half. And hurting her heart, for Spike, was like stabbing himself in the gut.

After a long moment, Buffy spoke, still clutching her arms around herself white knuckled, as if trying to hold herself together. "And Giles thought this up?"

Spike nodded once, almost afraid to speak. But he couldn't let the Watcher take all the blame. Spike had thought, in the end, it was a useful plan, if not a good idea... "But I agreed."

Buffy sat still for what seemed an eternity, her eyes darting between the stars above and the terrified face just below her on the steps. Internally, she was raging, with her rational mind grasping for purchase on the slippery slope of her hormonally aggravated emotions. The little voice of reason inside of her mind *screamed* that Giles would *never* have come up with a plan that would hurt Buffy. Not on purpose. And he'd never actually try to put it into action unless he thought, with all his Watchery mind, that it was worth the upset. Especially, since Giles was extremely protective of her condition, even when it wasn't being threatened by an ancient force of Darkness.

And then there was Spike.

That other voice, the emotional one, tore into her. A century. A frigging hundred *years* they were together. He had to have loved her. Whether or not he loved her more or less was sort of moot. He'd loved her enough to stay with her for a hundred years.

Still, the reasonable voice stated very calmly, a hundred years was how long he had to wait for you.

Buffy looked at Spike again. His face was a cross between terrified and heartbroken. Not gleefully looking forward to a tumble with his ex. On the contrary, she could feel the weight of dread in him, greater than what was weighing her down. And it hadn't gone away when he had told her the plan. It wasn't the dread of the secret, but the dread of the action.

"And do you think you can get information from her? I mean, useful information? Not like… what colour the emperor's clothes are or anything…," Buffy asked tentatively, not yet sure that she wanted to give in to the rational just yet.

A nervous laugh escaped the Vampire's lips. "Honestly, Pet, I don't know. I never presumed to understand her, as she truly is sack of hammers. But Giles knows, I know, that I'm probably the one she's most likely to talk to… and I'm the one who has the best chance of sussing out what she's saying."

The Slayer nodded, her arms tightening around herself. The rational part of her understood what he'd said and why he'd agreed. But still, there was that withering emotional bit screaming as she tried to force it down. That tinge of jealousy at their hundred years together. Buffy shifted nervously on the step, eyes flitting away from Spike. "Do you think you…? Spike... I mean, it's important that we know as much as we can, but do you think… Will you have to… *Would you*…?"

Spike quirked an eyebrow, looking up at her face, utterly confused at her question. She wouldn't return his gaze; only stare out at the sky blankly. She wasn't going to continue, but obviously it was important. "Would I what, Pet?"

Another sigh. She still wouldn't look at him and her knuckles were white where they clutched the backs of her arms in a steely hug. Slowly, her eyes sunk closed and she forced out the words. "Sleep with her, Spike? Have sex. Be inside of her again. Do you think that you'll have to…? I mean… if it was going to save our baby and… I know I need to be telling you to do anything, *anything* to save her, and really, that's what I want. Please know that. But please, Spike, don't make me say it. Know it, but…"

Spike watched her fight off both tears and anger, trying to do what was best for their child. He hadn't even thought of it. In reality, he was more worried about having to get her fed and talk her down from the clouds. Sex with her hadn't really crossed his mind much, though in a massive leap of wisdom, he sorted that that was why Rupert and he were both so afraid of this conversation. Not because Spike would ever want that again. Didn't want anything to do with Dru in that regard. But because *Buffy* would assume that the temptation would be there. *She* would worry that he'd do it to save their child. Worse yet, she'd almost want Spike to do it if it would help them. And that killed her. That was what the hard part of this equation had always been.

And to think, Spike mused, if anything, all he felt for her now was a distant love, like one has for their first, but not their greatest.

Like he knew she had somewhere for Angel.

"Buffy," Spike said softly, his thumb tracing circles on the palm of her hand. "I think it's safe to say that I don't think it will come to that." He paused, trying to think of how to continue. "And it's not what I want."

Silvery tears threatened to spill from her eyes, perched in the corners like raindrops from Heaven. "If it does… I mean… if she knows something, Spike, and she can tell us how to save… you should." Buffy's face was set in stone now. Unreadable. Just staring out at the stars, hoping for an answer there. But her eyes gave her away.

"Love, I don't want…"

"Do you still love her?" Buffy asked suddenly, her gaze finally settling on him and gripping him like a steel vise.

"What?" Spike asked, startled. He shook his head to clear it, wondering if she'd asked him what she'd just asked him.

"Love. Her." Buffy repeated, her fingernails digging half moons into the backs of her arms as she tightened her hold on herself...

A flash of fury burned in Spike's eyes. "No! How can you ask me that?"

That much escaped before he forced the anger back; trying to remember the amount of stress they were both under. And that he'd just dropped yet another heap onto the pile. Slowly, he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. How would he feel if she'd told him she'd have to run off to Angel all alone to get information by any means possible?

Now, there was some perspective. He was currently amazed that he was still breathing.

His eyes flickered open, softer now. "No," he answered again gently. "Did once. But nothing like… S'nothing like us, Love." Spike shifted, pulling her hands from their vise grip on her arms and taking them in his own. "I love you, Buffy. Only you. Always have, somewhere. Always will." His hand rose to her cheek, wiping away one of the tears that had finally escaped with a soft stroke of his thumb.

A hesitant little smile twitched the corners of her mouth. Her brave face was coming, which broke his heart every time he saw it, and he did quite often with all the times she'd laid down what she wanted in order to make the World a little better. . "Then you do what you have to do to save us, okay?"

Spike nodded softly, caressing her cheek. "I plan on just trying to talk with her, Love. S'what Dru and I did most of the time. She talked. I listened. I talked. She listened. Bit like us, 'cept it made even less sense."

Buffy chuckled, knowing better, but appreciating his effort to ease her mind. As much as the thought of her love even being near Drusilla again pained her, losing his body for a night would be worth saving their child. If it came to that. Which she really hoped it didn't.

One night.

But she had his heart for eternity.

If it came to it…

"Spike?"

"Yeah, Pet."

"Promise me you love me."

A small smile broke across his tired features. "I promise you, Pet. I love you Always."

"Always?"

"Everyday."

Buffy finally reached out, putting her arms over his shoulders and pulling him in for a soft, chaste, kiss. "I'd really, really like to go to bed."

"In that case," Spike answered, turning sideways and scooping her up from the steps, carrying her back into the house. Back to their somewhat normal lives.

~~~@~~~@~~~@~~~

Spike made his way up the stairs to their bedroom, Buffy still in his arms, their lips now meeting in urgent need, teeth clashing, moans and whimpers escaping in the split seconds left for breath. He was going to prove it, dammit. Prove to her that there was no one else for him *ever*. Not before, not since, not after. Not *ever*.

It was Buffy. Always Buffy.

"Spike," she whimpered between kisses, her one hand playing mercilessly with the zipper of his jeans. Jeans that were suddenly several sizes too small in the area of her hand. Her nails scratched along the back of his neck. She was going to show him where he belonged. Who he belonged to.

"God, Buffy," Spike whispered, his mouth still pressed to hers. "Always yours, Pet. Always."

He nudged open the door of their room open with the toe of his boot and began into the darkness when he stopped dead in his tracks. Buffy, confused that the time in which she was normally tossed onto the mattress and ravaged in an oh-so-pleasant sort of way had not come to pass, stopped her ministrations and looked up at his face.

Spike's eyes were wide and confused both with desire and with the scene.

She followed his gaze to their king sized bed and saw both Emma and Will curled in the center, foreheads pressed against each other, sleeping as soundly as kittens in a basket.

Spike tried to reel in his lust- addled mind and force other parts of his anatomy into behaving as well. "Did you bring the tots in, Pet?"

Buffy shook her head, still panting. "No. You?"

"No," Spike answered, his voice breathy, the little devil perched cartoonishly on his shoulder desperately wanting to recapture her mouth and go back outside. The little angel- his conscience and not the poofter in LA - was telling him that what was in front of them was far more important.

Buffy chuckled, silently giving up on her last night of wild, Discovery Channel, encounters, and resigning herself to her other great joy. "I think we might have to… put this on hold."

Spike nodded, swallowing hard. "Right. Right. Uh…" He walked to the chair in the corner of the room, setting her down and staring at her sweet, flushed face. "You sure, Pet? You know… You understand that I love you and…"

Buffy leaned forward, pressing her lips to his in a kiss full of sweetness and understanding. "I do, Spike. I trust you to do the right thing." Her eyes flitted back to the bed. "But I think we better find some pajamas and let them know too."

Spike smiled. "Damned PJ's."

"Decency… a hazard of parenting," Buffy chuckled, kissing him softly once again. "I love you, Spike."

"I know. And I…"

"I know."

Spike looked back over his shoulder at the sleeping tots. "Emma have school tomorrow?"

Buffy shook her head. "Holidays."

"Good. Think we could all use a late morning."

Buffy nodded, yawning, her hand over her belly. "This one too."

Spike leaned forward, kissing her hand. "'Specially that one."

"Nap?"

"Nap," Spike repeated, suddenly exhausted himself.

Buffy's eyes shot open as she rose. Spike's heart hammered in his chest, wondering what was wrong. "Spike?"

"What, Pet?"

"About tomorrow?"

"It'll be okay, Pet. Nothing bad'll happen with the Queen and …"

"Do you think we have to make hors d'oeuvres?"

Spike rolled his eyes, pulling her down to her knees in front of him and kissing her relentlessly. "Go. Put on your sodding pajamas and let's get to bed."

She giggled, kissing him back. "Only if you promise to let me show you who you belong to before you leave."

"Already know who I belong to," Spike whispered, capturing her lips. "Tho' doesn't hurt to be reminded."

To be contd.