Title: Living In Danger

Author: MSKBSwedish

Rating: Mature

Summery: Set four years after the first story 'Midnight Sun'. Buffy and Spike's daughter Linn is now four years old and it's up to Spike and Buffy to protect their little girl from demons and other sorts of evil when the word gets out that the Slayer and the Slayer of Slayers have a child together. Set as M for heavy adult themes at times.

Note: I own nothing of the Buffyverse.

Chapter Seven – Somewhere Nowhere

"I'm going to take Linn outside to play on the swings for a bit." Dawn said to me while I was elbow deep in dish soap. The dishwasher had broken a few days ago and we were still waiting for a repair.

I turned my head to see my baby sister with my three year old daughter in her arms. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a little pink t-shirt that was embellished with flowers of the purple variety.

"Alright, just don't keep her out too long, Dawn." I said firmly to my sister.

Dawn saluted me which caused Linn to mimic her. "Yes, ma'am." Dawn couldn't help but giggle at my daughter on her hip.

I smiled and turned back to finish doing the dishes. Yesterday was Linn's birthday and I was still elbows deep in dishes. Spike had managed to clean most of the house but I told him to go rest for a bit and I would take over, since he had let me sleep in pretty late to catch up on sleep.

I don't know how much time passed. I was so busy cleaning the dishes and washing down the kitchen counters that I didn't hear her cries at first. I know it had been a while because I heard the grandfather clock in the dinning room at least twice.

Suddenly the cries were clear as day. My head popped up from putting something away in the bottom cabinet and I looked around. "Malin." My voice came suddenly.

I quickly stood up straight and ran to the door. When I flung it open, Dawn was already making her way up the back steps. My eyes fell on my poor baby.

Her skin was so red. Certain spots were worse than others. Some areas even, bleeding. When Dawn flew past me, I could feel the heat radiating from them.

"Dawn! What happened?!" I shouted at my sister as I slammed the door shut and ran into the living room after them.

"I don't know!" Dawn cried. "I kept asking her if she was okay and I told her that if she started to burn to let me know and I turned around for one second to answer my cell phone and when I turned back around she was laying on the ground. When I picked her up she started crying."

"Oh baby. Oh honey." I ran my hand over my daughter's cheek which caused her to cry out in pain.

"Mummy it hurs! It hurs!" Linn screamed.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Spike hollered out as he come running down the stairs.

"She was out in the sun too long. She's bleeding, Spike." I looked up from our daughter. I had to keep calm. I couldn't let my daughter see me so upset that she was in pain.

Spike hurried over to us and gave Linn a once over. She reached for him.

"Daddy! It hurs!" Linn cried, her little hands reaching for the both of us.

"Oh, moonshine. I know, love." Spike pulled his shirt off quickly and put his cool hands against our daughter's cheeks.

"We have to cool her down." I said as I stood up. I looked over at Dawn. "Go get me the ice packs from the freezer and a towel. Grab the antibacterial ointment from the medicine cabinet."

Dawn nodded at me and hustled out of the room.

I knelt down in front of Linn beside Spike and began to try to gently remove the shirt from Linn as quickly and painless as possible but it was turning out to be a disaster. She was howling in pain and still I knew I couldn't cry. I wanted to. I felt guilty and I felt for my baby.

"I know it hurts, baby but we have to take this off." I said to Linn. I feared my voice was going to cause me to break but it didn't. I remained calm.

Once her shirt was removed, I tossed it to the floor. When we went to try for her jeans she started to smack our hands away and trying to kick us. She was fighting us because of the pain.

"I'm going to hold her, love. You work on the pants." Spike said firmly. I nodded my head quickly.

Spike stood up and pulled Linn into his arms, pressing his cool chest against her back and wrapping his cool hands around her belly to hold her there. She cried out in pain. I immediately tried to block out the fact that I was causing Linn further pain but it was proving to be more difficult than in theory.

Linn continued to kick and hit Spike and I. She struggled against her father's chest and even tried to headbutt him a few times. For three years old, she was strong. She was definitely my child.

Finally by the time I got her pants off, Dawn came in with the things I had told her to get. Immediately I grabbed the ice packs. Spike grabbed Linn by her wrists and held her out to dangle her in front of me. I placed an ice pack on her stomach and another on her back before wrapping the towel around her body to hold them there. I pulled her into my arms and held her to me.

"Shh. I know baby. I know." I said as I began rocking her as she cried. She continued to struggle to break free from me but I knew I had to cool her body temperature down further before she would be okay.

Spike left the room. He knew she needed blood. It was going to help her heal and it was going to help ease the pain and Spike knew that.

"Shh." I continued to chant to my crying daughter who continued to fight me. "Linn, baby. You need to stop." I tried to be firm but it was my instinct to immediately want to cry and hurt someone but there was no one to hurt. It wasn't Dawn's fault. Linn knew she was supposed to tell someone when she was too hot and burning.

"Malin Joyce Pratt." I said a little more firmly. "If you keep struggling you're just going to make it worse, baby." I tried to reason with my child but she was stubborn like her mother and she didn't care about my words in that moment. Something I was all too familiar with.

I was relieved when Spike came back in the room. "Let me take her." Spike said softly after sitting Linn's cup on the coffee table.

At this point Linn was starting to make herself cough and I feared she might make herself sick.

"Careful." I said to Spike as I handed Linn over to her father. Spike had a way with Linn that was something I never believed I'd see. It was when she needed him the most that this side of him came about.

"I've got you, bug. I've got you." Spike chanted softly. He started to hum to her. Even through her cries I could hear him.

I crossed my arms over my chest and rubbed my arms with my hands. I couldn't do anything when she was kicking and screaming. Hopefully Spike would have a better chance than I would.

Slowly but surely she began to settle and no longer struggled. Her cries got softer and quieter until they had subsided. I watched in awe. I was thankful that Spike turned out to be the amazing father that he is.

Spike sat down on the couch and I knelt in front of him and Linn. I grabbed the ointment and the cup with a straw in it.

"Linny, you need to drink." Spike said firmly but quietly to Linn in his lap. She shook her head but when I handed him the cup, he brought the straw close to her lips. "Come on, punky. It's going to make you feel much better." Spike said once more.

I didn't want to have to force it down her throat like we had the last time this happened. That was the worst but hours had flown by and she never settled or got any better. Times like this, I felt like a horrible mother.

Thankfully yet reluctantly, Linn wrapped her lips around the straw and took in the synthetic blood. I rubbed her back over the ice pack and the towel. "Good girl, moonshine. Good girl, baby." I smiled.

She drank a good bit of it while I rubbed some of the ointment on parts of her that were bleeding. Her drinking the blood had caught her attention enough that she didn't notice that I was rubbing the ointment on her body.

"Very good, Malin." Spike smiled and kissed her forehead. "She's still warm." Spike sighed.

I nodded my head. "I know, I can feel it. She's burning up."

"I don't want to have to ice her." Spike informed me.

"We might have to, Spike. If we can't bring the heat down, she's going to get worse." I explained as I continued to rub the ointment into the skin. I wiped some of the blood on the towel, really not caring if the blood stained the white towel.

The last time this happened, we actually had to have spike sit in an ice cold bath with Linn to bring the temperature of her body down. My daughter's body heat had actually began to cause her skin to deteriorate and crack only to make her bleed longer.

Thankfully, it didn't seem like that would be the case this time.

By the time Linn was done drinking the blood, she was calm but looked seriously depleted. I stroked her hair softly and looked at her face. She looked so far away and empty. I didn't like seeing this look on my daughter's face one bit. It didn't look like my baby in that instant.

I had a thought that came to mind. "I'll be right back." I said with a deep breath. I was going to do something I had only done once before out of desperation.

I took Linn's cup and walked into the kitchen. My hands trembled as I reached for one of the stake knives in our knife block.

Holding my wrist over the cup, I shut my eyes and braced for the pain. I pierced my wrist with the knife and winced in pain. I sat the knife down on the counter and let my blood drip into the cup. I opened my eyes to watch the ruby colored liquid drip out of me. I couldn't give her all of my blood but thankfully, being a slayer I had a good healing time and I didn't cut my main artery.

Once a good amount was in the cup, I wrapped one of the hand towels around my wrist and walked back into the living room. I handed the cup to Spike and I could see his throat move as he swallowed. The smell of my blood made him hungry and I could tell he was holding back. He knew what it was for.

"Here, Linn. Drink some more." Spike said softly.

I held my wrist to my chest with my fingers pressing tightly on my wound over the towel. I watched as my daughter drank the blood eagerly. I would have given my life to save my daughter, to ease her pain and it was times like this that it was true. I didn't think. I reacted. My baby was in pain and I was going to make her feel better at any cost.

That was the act of a mother. A true selfless act had been made to ease her pain.

00000000000000000000000000000000

Buffy's eyes fluttered open. The dream had been a memory. She remembered that day like it was yesterday; the day after Linn's third birthday. She cried for days after that about the pain but eventually she got better with the care of her mother and father and aunt Dawn helping whenever and however she could.

Buffy's bottom lip quivered at the memory and she gripped the teddy bear in her arms harder.

She battled her own instinct to get up and run outside and find her daughter with Spike's words to be patient and think clearly.

He was right. He was always right.

Slowly, Buffy pulled herself upright in bed. She didn't know how long she had been sleeping but she woke with a whole new type of determination. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to wallow. She was going to get her daughter back. No matter what it took. She was going to bring Linn home.

The door to the bedroom opened and Spike emerged to find Buffy sitting up in bed.

"It was Dru. She took Linn." Spike said quickly and to the point.

Buffy's eyes narrowed and the anger rose in her bones.

...TBC...