About two months later…

"Are you feeling okay?"

I lie and say yes, but it is very clear I am not. I can barely speak and have been lying on the cold tile floor of the bathroom, huddled in a blanket, for hours. I cannot stop vomiting. Mom never told me about this. I rarely thought about it, never having pregnancy be part of my plan in life. And even in those few moments when it had crossed my mind, I had naively thought I could deal with the pain having the strength of the Slayer. That is clearly not the case.

"Oh, Jesus, look at you," I hear him say from the entrance of the room.

He picks me up with the blankets wrapped around me. I try to fight him off, not wanting to be pitied, but then decide to let it go. He puts me back in bed and I cringe. My stomach is a wreck and my esophagus is on fire. I am unable to keep down any of the food that I have tried to eat and have been losing more weight than I ever did normally.

"You know, it's not too late to-"

"For the last time, Dean, no. I am not fucking around with that, do you understand me?"

He has been bothering me to abort the child since my health went into decline. Under normal circumstances, I would have felt it the proper thing to do. The last thing we need to do is bring someone else into our world of fear and pain. It seems irresponsible. But something about it makes me feel sick. After losing Dean, I feel I can't purposely destroy a part of us.

"Then go see a fucking doctor!" he says, his voice rising tremendously.

He is angry at me and I don't see why not. I am being stubborn, but with good reason. Leaving the house is not an option for me, due to a fear of the demons realizing I am still alive, as well as Dean. If they find me to be pregnant, the ideas of what they may do are unthinkable.

"Do I have to explain this to you again? Women have been having babies without doctors and hospitals since the dawn of time. We can do this ourselves."

"How do you know? You've never had a baby."

"I just know, okay?"

He's frustrated. All he sees is his wife essentially dying because of the baby inside her. It's not like I haven't thought about the possibility it would kill me. That isn't my worst fear, however. The fear that haunts me on a daily basis is that the child I'm carrying is somehow not human. After all, its father was pulled back from the dead in a way that has still not been explained. I try to ignore it, but pregnancy nightmares are frequent.

I want to say something else but before I get the chance, my stomach lurches up and I don't make it to the bathroom to vomit.

"You can't continue to be upset about this. I'm not exactly doing cartwheels about it myself, but think of it in a good way. We can be a regular family."

We are sitting in front of the fireplace. I feel like an old married couple, watching the fire while curled up on the armchair. It is very comfortable on my back. Dean is beside me on the second chair, not looking in my direction. I know what he is going to say before he says it.

"There's no such thing as a regular family. The last time I knew the notion of a regular family, I was the size of you."

At least he hasn't lost his cynical sense of humor. It lightens the atmosphere a bit.

"You're hysterical," I say with a dark edge, "but you forget that you're not the only one who has lost people. Those things I spent my life riding the earth of killed everyone I love – including you."

We don't talk about it much, his death. He turns to me then, his eyes boring into me.

"I still don't remember anything about that."

"I know."

Everything is silent again for a few minutes and I can't help but try to break the silence.

"What do you want to name the baby?"

"Buffy, what have I told you?"

"Look, its coming one way or another. So we may as well be happy about it. I never wanted kids either, but you kind of have to embrace it."

He doesn't say anything. I know him well enough to know that he would love to have children and that he would be a wonderful father. But due to our lifestyle, he can do nothing but worry. He can see only terror in our lives, so much that it blinds him to the happiness and love that can come with it. Before death, he had been a careful and at times worrisome person. But there had always been lightheartedness behind his eyes. That no longer exists. I agonize over the thought that he is still dead inside, but walking around, trying to make himself human again.

I pull myself from the chair, my pain slightly subsided. There is nothing more I feel I can say to him regarding the subject and I wonder what it would have been like if the demons had never attacked us. It brings tears to my eyes, ones I pull back in an almost angry fashion. The things I worked so long to kill off had ruined my life to an immeasurable extent. I want to believe that this will get better one day, but the pessimism is shoving me down further every day.

When I leave the room to climb the stairs to the bedroom, he doesn't follow me. It's late in the afternoon on a Sunday and I have nothing to do. My wish for him to even speak to me in a pleasant tone, one that he genuinely means, heightens with every step I take. The kicker of it is that I can't even blame him for the way he is acting. There's no way around what we are experiencing.

For almost an hour, I lay in the bathtub, doing my best to relax, something that doesn't happen. I wonder if he has fallen asleep in front of the fire, something he has been known to do. It's either that or he doesn't want to speak to me, which very well could be the case. After coming to the understanding that I will be unable to achieve any kind of peace, I wrap myself in a robe and walk into the guest room down the hall from our bedroom.

The room currently houses a bed and not much more. It is soon to be the nursery, but we have not begun any work on it. There are numerous books on pregnancy and babies under the bed. I keep them there because I worry that they may disappear if Dean sees them. I am unable to put it past him. Since I don't leave the house, I order everything off Amazon, one of the greatest tools of the modern age. The books are no exception. I have even read my latest order, being too sick.

I'm halfway through reading what to expect in the first trimester, restlessly skipping around paragraphs when I hear someone walking up the stairs. I look up instinctively, expecting to see Dean in the doorway. After a few moments, I don't see him.

"Dean? Is that you?" I call.

Nothing.

I toss the book beneath the bed, as I have done so many times before, and stand up.

"Dean?" I call louder in a more assertive tone.

"He's asleep."

I spin around to see the thing in the tan coat behind me.

"God, what is it with you and these dramatic entrances? They're not necessary; we have a door."

"What fun is that?" he asks with that sarcastic grin and undertone.

I roll my eyes.

"You will be happy again, you know. He will love her and you will be happy."

His words are much more genuine than his last, calming me momentarily.

"What?"

"Just keep it in mind."

"Buffy, who are you talking to?"

I turn to see my husband standing in the doorway. The second he asks, my head involuntarily turns back in the other direction. It is of no surprise to me that my cryptic messenger has vanished.

"No one."