FIC: Seraph (26/26)
Dec. 13th, 2009 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupStory begins here. All parts may be found here.
A/N: Here it is at last, folks: the final chapter.
I didn't know what I was getting into when I posted that first chapter back in January; I had no notion what a project this fic would turn out to be or how long it'd take me to finish it. I'm not certain I ever would have if it weren't for all the encouraging comments. So, to everyone who's dropped in even once to leave some nice words: thank you, thank you!
Thanks especially to the three lovely ladies that've read my broken drafts and helped me figure out how to fix them:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hello_spikey, phoenixofborg, and penny_lane_42. This fic would be much less shiny without you.
~~~~~
The thrill of that explosion of dust had faded. Now Dawn huddled against the supply-room wall, and it felt like her bones had frozen and would never thaw. She didn’t think it was just a temperature problem. It wasn’t the killing part -- that, she was totally okay with. If every one of the vamps out in the parking lot got staked right this minute, then Go Team Buffy. It was the part before, with the eyes and the fangs and the certainty that he was going to eat her.
Except he hadn’t, because she had killed him dead -- or, okay, deader. She had killed him. Take that, vamps.
She had sort of thought, all those basement evenings with Spike, that if she could just slay one stupid vampire then she wouldn’t be afraid of them anymore. Not, it turned out. ‘Cause she thought about the way the vamp had snarled, just like the one she’d sort of almost knuckled in the chin, months ago, and she was still cold and shaken.
Spike didn’t look any better off than her. His ragged breath hadn’t evened out to normal, even his weird kind of normal, and he had one hand pressed against his stomach like he didn’t dare let it fall. As he lifted the other hand, bloodied, to his mouth, she saw tremors.
“You’re shaking.”
A pause, while he finished licking the first knuckle. “Yeah.”
“Does it hurt really bad?” Did what hurt, she wasn’t sure; she hadn’t thought the other vampire had done any real damage.
He sighed -- a deep, weary sort of sigh, almost a groan. “S’not that. Just did too much running about, is all. And I haven’t eaten anything in a while.”
“Oh.” She pushed to her feet. “Maybe we can find something in here.” She’d barely given a glance to the metal-gray rows of industrial shelving, but now she would. It was for Spike, and it was something different than fangs, and those were two very good reasons.
Another sigh. “Dawn...”
“They fix lots of vampires here, right?” she said. “They have to keep blood somewhere.” But not on this aisle, apparently. Boxes of latex gloves on one side and syringes on the other, not what she was looking for. Didn’t need the bags of cotton swabs on the next aisle, or the sealed rows of canvas tape.
She could hear Spike against the far wall, still gasping at every breath. She walked faster, scanning for... well, where did she think they kept the blood, in soup cans? At the far end she turned left and walked the perimeter, looking for a fridge. She came to Spike and passed him. When she’d circled the whole room and come to him again, she said, “Sorry. I guess it’s somewhere else.”
“I figured,” he said. He tapped his ear. “No appliances running in here.”
Shoot. Dawn slid to the floor next to him. All this medical stuff, and no blood?
Except...
Dawn thought about Spike slumped and shaking. Also about the baby, who maybe needed feeding sooner than Spike could manage just now. And about bruising fingers, and pinching, and fangs.
“I want to see it again.”
He slitted an eye open.
“Your face. The other one. I want--” didn’t want, really didn’t want, would rather forget all about, but if she was going to do this had “--to see it again.”
“Another time, pet,” he said, and the exhaustion in his voice was almost enough to make her shut up and let him be worn out in peace.
Almost. “Please?”
He regarded her a moment, silent, not quite still. Then he lifted his chin just a little, and his brow dropped thick and heavy. His nose thickened too, and under his nose was his mouth, and in one corner of his mouth was a glint of fang. But worst was how the familiar sharp blue of his eyes melted to yellow, which was way scarier than anything to do with forehead or fangs.
She swallowed, heaving thin shallow breaths. “I like the other one better,” she said.
“Is that right,” he said, and she thought he sounded amused. She hoped.
“You don’t have any eyebrows now,” she said. “I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
He choked a laugh, grinning, which meant now she could see lots of fangs. He must have realized it; he sobered, and his mouth fell almost shut.
Yeah. Still a vampire. And still her friend.
“I have blood,” she said.
His head snapped up, yellow eyes already brighter and roving over her like she had a jar of it stuffed in her jeans pocket. Then he caught her meaning, and the hopeful light faded. “Yeah, and it’s going to keep on running merrily in your veins where it belongs.”
“People give blood all the time. It’s no big deal.”
“Look, even if I were even thinking about it -- which I’m not -- I couldn’t, anyway. Chip.”
“But what if I cut myself, just to get it started? You can suck blood, right? You just can’t bite.” She looked around for something sharp, but all she could think of were the syringes. “Does vampire saliva have germs?”
“I’m not going to eat my Niblet,” he said firmly. When had he started calling her that again? “I promised. And I’m especially not going to eat her when she’s scared.”
“I’m not scared!”
“Are too.”
“Am not!” Oh, right. Knives. She slipped the other one from her pocket and fumbled the strap open. Before she could think about it, she drew the point across her wrist -- crossways, of course, because everyone knew you only cut the other way if you wanted to get dead.
“Niblet!”
Fighting to keep her breath steady, she twisted and lifted her dripping arm up to his face. “See? Blood.”
“Get away from me,” he whispered. “A vamp’s only got so much chivalry...”
“Just take it already,” she said, letting the impatience in her voice shove out the other things. She thrust her wrist directly under his nose.
For a moment he stared past her arm, straight into her eyes. Then his gaze shifted, and the tilt of his head and the angle of his chin and all the reminders that this was Spike disappeared, leaving only demon. Really hungry demon.
Faster than she could see, he gripped her arm with both hands and put his mouth to her wrist. His fangs pressed into her skin, and his eyelids fell shut as he began to pull the blood out of her. She held her breath just to focus on something besides jerking away as fast as she could. Finally she let it go, gasping a little, but he only gripped her tighter. Every so often she could feel his cool damp tongue licking at the wound.
Just when she started to think about being light-headed and wondered if maybe, just maybe, he’d forgotten whose arm he had, he thrust her away so hard she had to scramble to keep her balance.
“Niblet,” he rasped, eyes closed, “if you ever do that again, I will drain you on principle.”
She opened her mouth, but all she could make was a squeak. She swallowed, tried again. “Do you feel better?”
A pause, an exploratory roll of the shoulders. “Yeah.”
“Then--” She lifted her chin, even though he couldn’t see it. “Then I’m not sorry.”
His eyes snapped open, blue again, and the look in them was so sharp that their color didn’t really make her feel any better. He gave her a long, thorough glare. “You cheeky little bint,” he said finally, and then she knew it was going to be all right. “C’mere, let’s get you bandaged up.” Just like that other time her arm had been hurt, he wrapped her in strips of t-shirt -- the one he was wearing, this time. “Now, saw a sink in here somewhere, yeah?”
She nodded.
“So go get some fluids in you.”
She rose on shaky legs. On a shelf she found a box of plastic cups and filled one at the big industrial sink. After two refills, she carefully walked back, a little dizzy still. But, she reflected, Spike didn’t look quite so miserable now that he’d eaten. He lifted an arm and she scooted under it.
Then she started shivering.
“Knew you were scared.”
Stupid body. “Maybe a little.” A pause, while she considered all the other things there were to be scared of. “Spike?”
“Mm.”
“D-do you think they’ll be all right?”
“ ‘Course they’ll be all right. Heroes and all.” He shifted a little. “Dunno what you’re worried about. It’s not even the end of the world.”
“And Xander?”
Just the briefest pause. “Boy’s made of rubber. Has to be, if he’s survived in the sidekick brigade this long. He’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t help it. She slipped her arms around him -- even though it took a little stretching to find a part of him that was thin enough -- and buried her face in his shoulder. From the burning in her eyes she figured she was probably crying.
He stroked her hair, and she thought maybe she could fall asleep this way. At least part of him was warm.
Something bumped under her arm, and she sniffled a giggle. “So there really is a baby in there.”
She could hear the grin in his voice. “It’s not just a baby. It’s my little girl. And I’m going to get her out.”
Somehow, that eased the rest of the fearful ache. She snuggled in closer. Her arm stung a little inside the t-shirt wrapping, and she thought there’d probably be a bruise tomorrow.
It was worth it, though.
She shut her eyes and matched his breaths, shuddering and irregular, with hers.
~*~*~
Banging. Metal and banging and voices, vaguely familiar. Spike swam up from some dark, bottomless dream. As he shifted, bright jabs of pain chased up and down his back. There was a weight on his shoulder: Dawn, asleep.
“Dawn? Spike?” The voice was muffled, but the sharpness was all the Slayer’s.
“Here,” he called, but the words stuck dry in his throat. He shook Dawn loose. With one hand to the wall and one to the floor, he managed to heave himself to his feet. God, he ached. Bloody tile.
At the door, he tried calling again. “Slayer?”
“Spike!” The doorknob rattled. “Are you guys okay? Can you get this door open?”
He regarded the cabinet, shoved against the door by adrenaline and terror. “Give us a minute.” It took some brute determination, but eventually he shifted it far enough away to give the Scoobies on the other side some leverage. The door scraped open and Buffy stormed through. “Are you guys all right? Where’s Dawn?”
“Asleep,” he said. “And we’ve been worse.” Although not much worse; all the good of Dawn’s hot-rich-fresh blood had long since been used up, it felt like. Now, upright, he was starting to feel light-headed. “What of the vamps on a mission?”
“Dust,” she said. “All of them.” Spike wondered at the vehemence in her tone.
Others filtered in: Willow and Tara, and then an orange, horned person with a stethoscope.
“And Xander?” He didn’t actually care, he didn’t, except... All right, so he did. It’s what came of fraternizing with the enemy; made you weak and let you get all attached.
“He’s getting fixed up right now,” Buffy said. “With enough bandages to be our own Sunnydale mummy.”
Damn. He’d have to be grateful to the boy now. Again.
“What about Spike-baby?” asked Buffy.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Still here.”
“Good.” She closed in and pressed a hand against his belly. A benediction, maybe. Or a promise. “Good.”
“Uh, Slayer,” he said, and then clutched heavily at her shoulder as his knees gave.
She followed him down, easing his fall. A moment later the medical person was at his side, peering into his eyes, prodding at his chest, and asking questions needing much more energy than he had. Fortunately, Buffy knew enough answers to satisfy, it seemed.
“So, convinced now?” she asked finally. “Not postponeable.”
The demon made a noise of assent and then rose, calling in sharp, barking voice, “Let’s get that room prepped!”
“Room for what?” Spike said, frowning up at Buffy.
Her lips quirked. “For the baby-having.”
Oh. Oh. “Bloody hell.” He closed his eyes to take in the shock of it.
After that, it was too much trouble to open them again. So he didn’t.
~*~*~
His nose tickled with the sharp acridness of medical sterility. Somewhere distant, heels clicked importantly against tile floor. Nearer by were the little rustlings and rhythms of live bodies at ease, scented of someone familiar. And within...
Stillness, silence. Death.
Nothing.
He woke gasping. Eyes not even half-focused, he shoved himself upright and then cried out at the mess of blades and acid ripping through his stomach.
“Spike!” Firm hands pushed him back onto the bed. Green eyes peered into his, half-amused and edged with concern. “I told them we should have tied you down,” she muttered.
“Is he okay?” came another voice. Over him another face loomed, framed by long chestnut hair that fell nearly into his eyes.
Face and scent and name connected. “Dawn?” And then the other one. “Slayer?”
Buffy straightened. “Comma, the. How’s the post-op vamp?”
“Is she all right?” Because she was gone and her heartbeat was, too. It was the first time in seven months he’d been without it. “She’s not... I don’t...” Now he could feel the bandages swathing his middle and pulling at his chest. “Where is she?”
Buffy shrugged. “She’s getting shots or a check-up or something. I don’t know. She’ll be back soon.”
“You let them just walk off with her?”
“Tara went, too,” Dawn said. “But we didn’t, in case you woke up.”
“So take me there,” he said. He dropped one leg over the side of the bed and gritted his teeth as the motion pulled at the wounds -- stitches? -- in his belly.
“Hold it, buster.” Buffy rested a hand on his chest. “You’re the one with the major abdominal surgery. How’s about we let the baby come to you.”
“I’ll go tell them you’re awake!” Dawn said, turning and charging from the room like a teenage girl on a mission. Spike wondered how long she’d been sitting there, fidgeting, waiting for him.
Under the weight of Buffy’s hand, he sank shakily back against the pillows. He didn’t even protest when she hoisted his foot back under the hospital blanket. “But she’s all right,” he said, just to hear the words.
Buffy shrugged. “They say birth is a pretty traumatic experience, especially when, you know, it’s an emergency c-section on a vampire with imminent collapse issues.” She settled near his feet on the bed. “But she looked okay to me. Entirely baby-like.”
“So you saw her.”
A roll of the eyes. “Yes, Spike, I saw her.”
“Speaking of collapse issues...”
“You’ll be okay,” she said. “They think. It sounds like Dr. I Am the Walrus got all the Initiative gadgets out, so some more blood and you’ll be bad as new, oh yay. Except for the breathing thing, which I guess you’re stuck with, since it’s because of the chip.”
He shrugged, and then winced at the twinges in his chest. “There are worse souvenirs.”
“I guess,” she said.
After a few moments of silence, he ventured, “Slayer?” But it was the wrong word now. Had been for a while, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it. “Buffy.”
Gaze enquring, lips pursed, she waited. What’s he going to come up with now, she was wondering; it was written all over her face.
After a moment’s struggle for words, he said finally, “Thanks.”
“Hey, no biggie.” Buffy smiled softly, her feet swinging against the bedframe. “This is what I do. Stake the bad guys and save the... good guys.” The smile quirked. “And sometimes other people, too.”
A person, now, was he? He’d have to let that admission roll around in his head awhile.
Buffy glanced past him, her lips parting in a grin. “Hey, look,” she said. “Here comes another souvenir now.”
He turned.
Coming in the door were Tara and Dawn, and with them was a delicately green-hued woman in scrubs, and in the woman’s arms was a small, yellow bundle. “About time you woke up,” the woman said. “Would you like to meet your daughter?”
Spike pushed himself upright, ignoring his own gasps of pain. The woman walked to his bedside and lowered her burden into his arms, shifting them into a position that suited her. The cloth was soft as gauze against his skin, the weight barely a breath. He caught a glimpse of nose, squashed and red.
“You sure this one’s mine?” he said, breaking the burble of voices around him. “No mix-ups.” Because how could he tell if this was who’d been kicking at his ribs so long? And he knew, with the sliver of brain still functioning, that as soon as he really saw the tiny form in his arms he’d be lost.
The green woman smiled at him, bemused. “We don’t get many human babies here.”
Right, then.
He took a breath. Carefully, finally, he looked at his little girl.
She was the color of a day-old bruise, with a face pinched shut and crescents of gingery hair wisping from her skull. She had fists the size of his thumbs and fingernails like flower petals. Her veins raced with blood pressed on by that long-familiar flutter.
She was the whole world.
She was his.
“Hello, love,” he whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Finis
A/N: Here it is at last, folks: the final chapter.
I didn't know what I was getting into when I posted that first chapter back in January; I had no notion what a project this fic would turn out to be or how long it'd take me to finish it. I'm not certain I ever would have if it weren't for all the encouraging comments. So, to everyone who's dropped in even once to leave some nice words: thank you, thank you!
Thanks especially to the three lovely ladies that've read my broken drafts and helped me figure out how to fix them:
hello_spikey, phoenixofborg, and penny_lane_42. This fic would be much less shiny without you.~~~~~
The thrill of that explosion of dust had faded. Now Dawn huddled against the supply-room wall, and it felt like her bones had frozen and would never thaw. She didn’t think it was just a temperature problem. It wasn’t the killing part -- that, she was totally okay with. If every one of the vamps out in the parking lot got staked right this minute, then Go Team Buffy. It was the part before, with the eyes and the fangs and the certainty that he was going to eat her.
Except he hadn’t, because she had killed him dead -- or, okay, deader. She had killed him. Take that, vamps.
She had sort of thought, all those basement evenings with Spike, that if she could just slay one stupid vampire then she wouldn’t be afraid of them anymore. Not, it turned out. ‘Cause she thought about the way the vamp had snarled, just like the one she’d sort of almost knuckled in the chin, months ago, and she was still cold and shaken.
Spike didn’t look any better off than her. His ragged breath hadn’t evened out to normal, even his weird kind of normal, and he had one hand pressed against his stomach like he didn’t dare let it fall. As he lifted the other hand, bloodied, to his mouth, she saw tremors.
“You’re shaking.”
A pause, while he finished licking the first knuckle. “Yeah.”
“Does it hurt really bad?” Did what hurt, she wasn’t sure; she hadn’t thought the other vampire had done any real damage.
He sighed -- a deep, weary sort of sigh, almost a groan. “S’not that. Just did too much running about, is all. And I haven’t eaten anything in a while.”
“Oh.” She pushed to her feet. “Maybe we can find something in here.” She’d barely given a glance to the metal-gray rows of industrial shelving, but now she would. It was for Spike, and it was something different than fangs, and those were two very good reasons.
Another sigh. “Dawn...”
“They fix lots of vampires here, right?” she said. “They have to keep blood somewhere.” But not on this aisle, apparently. Boxes of latex gloves on one side and syringes on the other, not what she was looking for. Didn’t need the bags of cotton swabs on the next aisle, or the sealed rows of canvas tape.
She could hear Spike against the far wall, still gasping at every breath. She walked faster, scanning for... well, where did she think they kept the blood, in soup cans? At the far end she turned left and walked the perimeter, looking for a fridge. She came to Spike and passed him. When she’d circled the whole room and come to him again, she said, “Sorry. I guess it’s somewhere else.”
“I figured,” he said. He tapped his ear. “No appliances running in here.”
Shoot. Dawn slid to the floor next to him. All this medical stuff, and no blood?
Except...
Dawn thought about Spike slumped and shaking. Also about the baby, who maybe needed feeding sooner than Spike could manage just now. And about bruising fingers, and pinching, and fangs.
“I want to see it again.”
He slitted an eye open.
“Your face. The other one. I want--” didn’t want, really didn’t want, would rather forget all about, but if she was going to do this had “--to see it again.”
“Another time, pet,” he said, and the exhaustion in his voice was almost enough to make her shut up and let him be worn out in peace.
Almost. “Please?”
He regarded her a moment, silent, not quite still. Then he lifted his chin just a little, and his brow dropped thick and heavy. His nose thickened too, and under his nose was his mouth, and in one corner of his mouth was a glint of fang. But worst was how the familiar sharp blue of his eyes melted to yellow, which was way scarier than anything to do with forehead or fangs.
She swallowed, heaving thin shallow breaths. “I like the other one better,” she said.
“Is that right,” he said, and she thought he sounded amused. She hoped.
“You don’t have any eyebrows now,” she said. “I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
He choked a laugh, grinning, which meant now she could see lots of fangs. He must have realized it; he sobered, and his mouth fell almost shut.
Yeah. Still a vampire. And still her friend.
“I have blood,” she said.
His head snapped up, yellow eyes already brighter and roving over her like she had a jar of it stuffed in her jeans pocket. Then he caught her meaning, and the hopeful light faded. “Yeah, and it’s going to keep on running merrily in your veins where it belongs.”
“People give blood all the time. It’s no big deal.”
“Look, even if I were even thinking about it -- which I’m not -- I couldn’t, anyway. Chip.”
“But what if I cut myself, just to get it started? You can suck blood, right? You just can’t bite.” She looked around for something sharp, but all she could think of were the syringes. “Does vampire saliva have germs?”
“I’m not going to eat my Niblet,” he said firmly. When had he started calling her that again? “I promised. And I’m especially not going to eat her when she’s scared.”
“I’m not scared!”
“Are too.”
“Am not!” Oh, right. Knives. She slipped the other one from her pocket and fumbled the strap open. Before she could think about it, she drew the point across her wrist -- crossways, of course, because everyone knew you only cut the other way if you wanted to get dead.
“Niblet!”
Fighting to keep her breath steady, she twisted and lifted her dripping arm up to his face. “See? Blood.”
“Get away from me,” he whispered. “A vamp’s only got so much chivalry...”
“Just take it already,” she said, letting the impatience in her voice shove out the other things. She thrust her wrist directly under his nose.
For a moment he stared past her arm, straight into her eyes. Then his gaze shifted, and the tilt of his head and the angle of his chin and all the reminders that this was Spike disappeared, leaving only demon. Really hungry demon.
Faster than she could see, he gripped her arm with both hands and put his mouth to her wrist. His fangs pressed into her skin, and his eyelids fell shut as he began to pull the blood out of her. She held her breath just to focus on something besides jerking away as fast as she could. Finally she let it go, gasping a little, but he only gripped her tighter. Every so often she could feel his cool damp tongue licking at the wound.
Just when she started to think about being light-headed and wondered if maybe, just maybe, he’d forgotten whose arm he had, he thrust her away so hard she had to scramble to keep her balance.
“Niblet,” he rasped, eyes closed, “if you ever do that again, I will drain you on principle.”
She opened her mouth, but all she could make was a squeak. She swallowed, tried again. “Do you feel better?”
A pause, an exploratory roll of the shoulders. “Yeah.”
“Then--” She lifted her chin, even though he couldn’t see it. “Then I’m not sorry.”
His eyes snapped open, blue again, and the look in them was so sharp that their color didn’t really make her feel any better. He gave her a long, thorough glare. “You cheeky little bint,” he said finally, and then she knew it was going to be all right. “C’mere, let’s get you bandaged up.” Just like that other time her arm had been hurt, he wrapped her in strips of t-shirt -- the one he was wearing, this time. “Now, saw a sink in here somewhere, yeah?”
She nodded.
“So go get some fluids in you.”
She rose on shaky legs. On a shelf she found a box of plastic cups and filled one at the big industrial sink. After two refills, she carefully walked back, a little dizzy still. But, she reflected, Spike didn’t look quite so miserable now that he’d eaten. He lifted an arm and she scooted under it.
Then she started shivering.
“Knew you were scared.”
Stupid body. “Maybe a little.” A pause, while she considered all the other things there were to be scared of. “Spike?”
“Mm.”
“D-do you think they’ll be all right?”
“ ‘Course they’ll be all right. Heroes and all.” He shifted a little. “Dunno what you’re worried about. It’s not even the end of the world.”
“And Xander?”
Just the briefest pause. “Boy’s made of rubber. Has to be, if he’s survived in the sidekick brigade this long. He’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t help it. She slipped her arms around him -- even though it took a little stretching to find a part of him that was thin enough -- and buried her face in his shoulder. From the burning in her eyes she figured she was probably crying.
He stroked her hair, and she thought maybe she could fall asleep this way. At least part of him was warm.
Something bumped under her arm, and she sniffled a giggle. “So there really is a baby in there.”
She could hear the grin in his voice. “It’s not just a baby. It’s my little girl. And I’m going to get her out.”
Somehow, that eased the rest of the fearful ache. She snuggled in closer. Her arm stung a little inside the t-shirt wrapping, and she thought there’d probably be a bruise tomorrow.
It was worth it, though.
She shut her eyes and matched his breaths, shuddering and irregular, with hers.
Banging. Metal and banging and voices, vaguely familiar. Spike swam up from some dark, bottomless dream. As he shifted, bright jabs of pain chased up and down his back. There was a weight on his shoulder: Dawn, asleep.
“Dawn? Spike?” The voice was muffled, but the sharpness was all the Slayer’s.
“Here,” he called, but the words stuck dry in his throat. He shook Dawn loose. With one hand to the wall and one to the floor, he managed to heave himself to his feet. God, he ached. Bloody tile.
At the door, he tried calling again. “Slayer?”
“Spike!” The doorknob rattled. “Are you guys okay? Can you get this door open?”
He regarded the cabinet, shoved against the door by adrenaline and terror. “Give us a minute.” It took some brute determination, but eventually he shifted it far enough away to give the Scoobies on the other side some leverage. The door scraped open and Buffy stormed through. “Are you guys all right? Where’s Dawn?”
“Asleep,” he said. “And we’ve been worse.” Although not much worse; all the good of Dawn’s hot-rich-fresh blood had long since been used up, it felt like. Now, upright, he was starting to feel light-headed. “What of the vamps on a mission?”
“Dust,” she said. “All of them.” Spike wondered at the vehemence in her tone.
Others filtered in: Willow and Tara, and then an orange, horned person with a stethoscope.
“And Xander?” He didn’t actually care, he didn’t, except... All right, so he did. It’s what came of fraternizing with the enemy; made you weak and let you get all attached.
“He’s getting fixed up right now,” Buffy said. “With enough bandages to be our own Sunnydale mummy.”
Damn. He’d have to be grateful to the boy now. Again.
“What about Spike-baby?” asked Buffy.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Still here.”
“Good.” She closed in and pressed a hand against his belly. A benediction, maybe. Or a promise. “Good.”
“Uh, Slayer,” he said, and then clutched heavily at her shoulder as his knees gave.
She followed him down, easing his fall. A moment later the medical person was at his side, peering into his eyes, prodding at his chest, and asking questions needing much more energy than he had. Fortunately, Buffy knew enough answers to satisfy, it seemed.
“So, convinced now?” she asked finally. “Not postponeable.”
The demon made a noise of assent and then rose, calling in sharp, barking voice, “Let’s get that room prepped!”
“Room for what?” Spike said, frowning up at Buffy.
Her lips quirked. “For the baby-having.”
Oh. Oh. “Bloody hell.” He closed his eyes to take in the shock of it.
After that, it was too much trouble to open them again. So he didn’t.
His nose tickled with the sharp acridness of medical sterility. Somewhere distant, heels clicked importantly against tile floor. Nearer by were the little rustlings and rhythms of live bodies at ease, scented of someone familiar. And within...
Stillness, silence. Death.
Nothing.
He woke gasping. Eyes not even half-focused, he shoved himself upright and then cried out at the mess of blades and acid ripping through his stomach.
“Spike!” Firm hands pushed him back onto the bed. Green eyes peered into his, half-amused and edged with concern. “I told them we should have tied you down,” she muttered.
“Is he okay?” came another voice. Over him another face loomed, framed by long chestnut hair that fell nearly into his eyes.
Face and scent and name connected. “Dawn?” And then the other one. “Slayer?”
Buffy straightened. “Comma, the. How’s the post-op vamp?”
“Is she all right?” Because she was gone and her heartbeat was, too. It was the first time in seven months he’d been without it. “She’s not... I don’t...” Now he could feel the bandages swathing his middle and pulling at his chest. “Where is she?”
Buffy shrugged. “She’s getting shots or a check-up or something. I don’t know. She’ll be back soon.”
“You let them just walk off with her?”
“Tara went, too,” Dawn said. “But we didn’t, in case you woke up.”
“So take me there,” he said. He dropped one leg over the side of the bed and gritted his teeth as the motion pulled at the wounds -- stitches? -- in his belly.
“Hold it, buster.” Buffy rested a hand on his chest. “You’re the one with the major abdominal surgery. How’s about we let the baby come to you.”
“I’ll go tell them you’re awake!” Dawn said, turning and charging from the room like a teenage girl on a mission. Spike wondered how long she’d been sitting there, fidgeting, waiting for him.
Under the weight of Buffy’s hand, he sank shakily back against the pillows. He didn’t even protest when she hoisted his foot back under the hospital blanket. “But she’s all right,” he said, just to hear the words.
Buffy shrugged. “They say birth is a pretty traumatic experience, especially when, you know, it’s an emergency c-section on a vampire with imminent collapse issues.” She settled near his feet on the bed. “But she looked okay to me. Entirely baby-like.”
“So you saw her.”
A roll of the eyes. “Yes, Spike, I saw her.”
“Speaking of collapse issues...”
“You’ll be okay,” she said. “They think. It sounds like Dr. I Am the Walrus got all the Initiative gadgets out, so some more blood and you’ll be bad as new, oh yay. Except for the breathing thing, which I guess you’re stuck with, since it’s because of the chip.”
He shrugged, and then winced at the twinges in his chest. “There are worse souvenirs.”
“I guess,” she said.
After a few moments of silence, he ventured, “Slayer?” But it was the wrong word now. Had been for a while, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it. “Buffy.”
Gaze enquring, lips pursed, she waited. What’s he going to come up with now, she was wondering; it was written all over her face.
After a moment’s struggle for words, he said finally, “Thanks.”
“Hey, no biggie.” Buffy smiled softly, her feet swinging against the bedframe. “This is what I do. Stake the bad guys and save the... good guys.” The smile quirked. “And sometimes other people, too.”
A person, now, was he? He’d have to let that admission roll around in his head awhile.
Buffy glanced past him, her lips parting in a grin. “Hey, look,” she said. “Here comes another souvenir now.”
He turned.
Coming in the door were Tara and Dawn, and with them was a delicately green-hued woman in scrubs, and in the woman’s arms was a small, yellow bundle. “About time you woke up,” the woman said. “Would you like to meet your daughter?”
Spike pushed himself upright, ignoring his own gasps of pain. The woman walked to his bedside and lowered her burden into his arms, shifting them into a position that suited her. The cloth was soft as gauze against his skin, the weight barely a breath. He caught a glimpse of nose, squashed and red.
“You sure this one’s mine?” he said, breaking the burble of voices around him. “No mix-ups.” Because how could he tell if this was who’d been kicking at his ribs so long? And he knew, with the sliver of brain still functioning, that as soon as he really saw the tiny form in his arms he’d be lost.
The green woman smiled at him, bemused. “We don’t get many human babies here.”
Right, then.
He took a breath. Carefully, finally, he looked at his little girl.
She was the color of a day-old bruise, with a face pinched shut and crescents of gingery hair wisping from her skull. She had fists the size of his thumbs and fingernails like flower petals. Her veins raced with blood pressed on by that long-familiar flutter.
She was the whole world.
She was his.
“Hello, love,” he whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Finis
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Date: 2009-12-13 09:29 pm (UTC)What? You were expecting coherence?
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Date: 2009-12-16 03:30 am (UTC)It's been lovely having you reading along these last few chapters. I'm so pleased the story won you over, despite the icky mpreg. :)