Disclaimer: I will not claim to own anything of this story. Joss Whedon created the characters, Billie Letts wrote "Where the Heart Is", which this is based on.

Rating: This will be rated R! Sorry kiddies, but I like using inappropriate language.

Author's Notes: Oh goodie, some people have actually decided to read this story! Well, anyway, I'm glad you like it, except for my bitch of a sister Anyanka Faith, and my bitch of a friend Organized Mess (I love both of you severely). And, as always, Imzadi, I adore you and your fascination with Lindsey. All I have to say is, MAYBE! Fanreader and Michelle, I'm glad you like it, and, just for you, here's the next chappy. Longer, just to make up for the short snippet I published last time. As always, tell me what you think. Hugs, kisses, and football-like slaps on the ass!

PS: GO DUCKS! ____________________________________________________________________________

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Chapter Two- Superstition

The third trimester of pregnancy had been better than her first two. During the first three months, the morning sickness had been so bad that Buffy had to give up the morning shift at Willy's Place, the café she had been working at. And she had gained so much weight during the seconds three months, she was afraid that she'd never get it off.

Although the third trimester was turning out to be a breeze, she was constantly tired. Janna, who had worked at Willy's along with Buffy, explained that she slept fourteen hours a day when she was pregnant with her fourth child.

Around noon, Buffy felt herself drifting to sleep in the Nova. She and Angel had been on the road for four days, and the endless horizon of sand and sun took on a hypnotic effect, throwing the girl into a drowsy state.

Her notebook, a cheep spiral number with various magazine clippings pasted to the cover, was placed on the dashboard so it wouldn't fall down the hole in the floor as she slept.

She had her dream.

# # # # #

When Buffy was five, her mother Darla abandoned her and ran off with a man named Joseph Nest. Neighbors took in the young girl, and decided to splurge on a day at the county fair to cheer her up.

The day had been a whirlwind of excitement, and Buffy ended the day by riding 'Colossus', a monstrous roller coaster. It terrified her, and when she got off, she vowed never again to ride roller coasters.

For the past few months, she kept having the same dream.

She was on 'Colossus', in one of those bottomless cars, her feet dangling below her. The ride would start, and up the car went. It was as if she was flying into the heavens.

Just as the car hit the peak, a small hand would grab hers. Through some maternal instinct, she knew it was her baby's hand. But as Buffy tried to look at the child, the car would swoop down at about one million miles an hour over the peak.

It went on forever, tossing and turning her body, slamming her head against the neck brace. All the while, that little hand clutched hers for dear life.

When it appeared that the ride was over, the car turned a corner, and the loop came into view. They flipped around, and at the moment when the car was completely upside-down, Buffy's neck brace broke open. She fell, but that little hand would keep hold, not letting her go. Eventually, as they clung to each other, her baby's neck brace would also detach. Mother and baby fell to their deaths.

Just as they hit the ground, Buffy would wake with a start.

# # # # #

This time, it actually felt real.

In that small space of time where you can remember every aspect of dreams, Buffy swore that her's was real. She swore she could feel the rush of air across her face, sailing through her toes. At one point, in the dream, she felt her shoes fly off as she rounded a dangerous curve.

As she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, she realized that it was, in fact, a dream.

Groping the dashboard, she grabbed her notebook and placed it safely in her lap. Or, more correctly, what was left of her lap.

A sign on the road caught her attention. A mile marker, the number 5 glaring at her as if the sign was red-hot.

Cringing, she crossed her fingers, then whispered a brief protection spell she learned years ago from a woman she lived with for three months.

Buffy did *not* like fives.

It was probably hooky and medieval for her to be so superstitious, but she didn't care. Fives and Buffy were un-mixy things. Darla left her when she was five. She lost her virginity to some random guy who ended up stealing her car and $20 in room five at the Motel Six in Idaho. A year ago, she was waitressing in a bar in Las Vegas, a fight broke out between two customers, and when she tried to break it up, one of the guys pulled out a knife and slashed her arm open. It took fifty-five stitches to close up the wound.

Buffy looked down at the floor to avoid the sign. It was then that she noticed her shoes were gone. Her pair of thongs had mysteriously disappeared.

Through the hole in the floor.

She looked back, hoping to see her shoes lying somewhere down the road, but she couldn't. 'That's why the dream felt so real,' she realized. At least it wasn't her notebook.

Those thongs were the only pair she had, the only ones that still fit her swollen feet.

Angel's voice drifted over to her, and she began to panic. He wouldn't be happy if he found out she lost her only pair of shoes. For the past four days, he hadn't been happy at all. The job in Phoenix he hoped to get had been filled by the time they got there. After that, he got drunk in some random bar, started a fight, and was put in jail overnight. Needless to say, he probably wouldn't take it well if he found out.

Right now, he was singing along with the radio, some nameless tune she had never heard before, and she would forget about after it was over. A cigarette was in his mouth, held by his teeth as he sang.

Again, she let her gaze wander outside, not wanting to have that likely heated conversation with him now.

Flashing past the speeding Nova was another green sign, but this one proclaiming "Los Angeles- 349 miles".

That's where they would build their new life. LA. The Phoenix job hadn't panned out, but he got a tip from one of his relations of a position in the city. So, after she bailed Angel out of jail, they headed north.

She began to dream of this new life. After the baby was born, they'd get married, probably by a justice of the peace. They would stay in an apartment for a while, until Angel made enough money to move to the suburbs. And, for the first time in her life, Buffy would live in a real house. For all of her seventeen years, she stayed in various apartment complexes, trailers, motels, and even for six weeks, a tent. Now she was actually going to get her house, something sturdy, with a real foundation on the ground. No paper thin walls with noisy neighbors, no hassles with landlords. Something with a backyard, for a sandbox and a garden, and a porch in the front, where she and Angel could sit on a porch swing and watch their child draw with chalk on the sidewalk . . .

"Hey." Angel's low voice snapped her back to consciousness.

He held up the Coke can filled to the brim with cigarette butts. She'd complained since Phoenix that his smoking could hurt the baby, but he wouldn't stop.

Instinctively, she parted her legs, and Angel shot the can through the hole in the floor. The same hole where her shoes had fallen through a while ago.

For a moment, she doubted that Angel would be game for her suburbanite dream.

As, once again, she began to stare out the window, an enormous building broke through the flat horizon. It looked, to the girl, like Heaven.

Wal-Mart.

"STOP ANGEL!" She screamed as loud as she could, knowing this would get his attention.

"What?" he growled, clearly pissed off that she dared to interrupt him half way through Simon and Garfunkel's "America".

"There's a Wal-Mart!" Her finger pointed to the building, then to the exit that was rapidly approaching.

"So?"

"So, I gotta . . ." Thoughts flashed through her head as she tried to come up with a suitable answer. "I gotta pee!" It was partially true.

"You went pee at the last stop!"

"I'm fucking pregnant! The baby keeps kicking my bladder!"

Her whines always got on Angel's nerves, so to shut her up, Angel sped towards the exit, without signaling or looking over his shoulder, and almost slamming into a pretty green VW bug in the process. In this same manner, he raced through the parking lot, stopping in an obviously handicap space, all the while grumbling while the car idled.

This new anger made the next request hard to force out.

"Um . . . I'm gonna need some money."

"Money?" His face was now set in a scowl.

"Well, I need some . . ." she explained, then took a big gulp of air, "Shoes."

"Shoes? You have almost twenty pairs!"

"Actually, I have one."

"Then why the hell do you need shoes?"

He looked down at her feet, to point out the perfectly good flip-flops she had been wearing for a while, but they were missing. Almost immediately, he put two and two together.

Not responding, she gave him a slight pout, hoping he wouldn't go any further with the questioning.

Another grumble-fest took place as he reached in his wallet, and took out a ten-dollar bill.

"Thanks." The acknowledgement seemed to pass right through him. So she opened the car door, placed her notebook down on the seat, and got up out of the car.

But as she did, she felt a small movement inside her large stomach.

"Hurry up, we gotta be in LA by five!" Angel was impatiently tapping on the steering wheel.

The demand and the ill-forsaken number were unheard. "Angel, come here," she asked in a breathless tone.

"For god sakes, hurry your big ass into the store and piss away!"

"Angel!" Anger filled her voice, and for once, he shut up. "Come feel the baby."

Rolling his eyes, he his head away, focusing instead on a nearby semi.

Refusing to give up, Buffy walked around the hood of the car, and opened the driver side door. She grabbed his hand, and gently placed it on her stomach.

"Can you feel it?" She was breathless again, amazed by the tiny life in her belly. When he didn't respond, she asked again. "Can you feel it?"

"Feel what, damnit?"

For a brief second, she removed his hand, checked the spot, then put his hand where she was sure he could feel it.

"Can't you feel that little 'thump . . . thump . . . thump'? That's where the baby's heart is."

Snatching his hand away, he used it to change radio stations. "Whatever. I can't feel it."

She wanted to cry. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes, but she shook them away. There was no point in crying.

Money in hand, feet bare, sweat beads on her forehead, and her belly sticking out, Buffy Summers walked into the Wal-Mart.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Cool breeze from the air conditioning blasted over her body, and the instant change in temperature had some healing effect on her, but Buffy ignored it as she raced to the bathroom.

The stalls were all in use, so Buffy waited, leaning against the tile wall. Her reflection, the one she had avoided since her belly started to grow, stared at her in the mirror.

Her once golden hair was now dull, pulled into a sloppy ponytail, the loose ends matted to her forehead and the back of her neck. Due to the heat, her skin was blotchy, and dark bags hung under her eyes. Without makeup or lotion, she looked dry, worn.

She no longer felt like the seventeen-year-old waitress who seduced Angel. That stupid, foolish girl seemed all but gone. Left any wonder to why he never looked at her the way he used to.

Refusing to look any more at her reflection, she began to hop back and forth, waiting for one of the stalls to open up. A little girl, hair in pigtails, came out first, and Buffy hustled into the empty toilet.

After a quick pee, she ran over to the shoe department. Her eyes fell on a pair of white platform flip-flops, with a pattern of bright orange and blue flowers. Only $4.45!

Grinning, she picked up the shoes, and went to the checkout line. Concentrating more on the tabloid magazines in the rack next to her than the checkout attendant, she absently handed over the shoes and the cash.

As she puzzled over one headline (Elvis IS alive, and he's giving birth to Jesus!), she couldn't hear the attendant speak to her.

"Excuse me?" Buffy asked.

The attendant scowled, hating to repeat herself. "Here's your shoes, and change, miss."

Buffy took the shoes, now held in a plastic bag, and reached her hand out for the change. Only then did she see the amount on the screen.

$5.55 in change.

Shit.

Her loud scream echoed through the store, and she dropped every cent of the change as she ran out of the automatic doors, ignoring the attendant and greeters struggles to get her attention.

'It's not happening, he wouldn't do it, it's not happening, it's not happening . . .'

She repeated the mantra in her head, hoping that fate would take pity on her. But, even before she got to the parking spot, she knew what had happened.

The handicap spot was empty, her suitcase and notebook were hastily strewn in the space.

A familiar oil stain, the one she nagged him to fix before they set off, stared up at her, the only part of their car left behind.

Angel was gone.

She was alone.

And she had no idea where she was.