Chapter Ten

Buffy and Cordelia returned from the beach freshly tanned. The blond slayer had gotten a slight sunburn on her nose, and fretted over the fact that it would probably peel.

"I'm telling you, Cordy, that volleyball player was totally checking you out."

Cordelia grinned. "No way. He was all about the Buff."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Except that this little ring here is pretty much a cute boy repellent."

"Doesn't keep one cute boy away. Your hubby's a hottie."

Buffy giggled. "I know. Wonder where he is? Probably off causing mayhem." She waltzed up the stairs to her room, then ran back downstairs, her face suddenly pale.

She smacked into Angel. "What happened to Spike?" she asked worriedly.

Angel looked away, guilt clouding his face. He was silent, and sported a cut above one eye and a fat lip, which Buffy immediately noticed.

Buffy's eyes widened with sudden realization. "You did this to him," she half-whispered. It wasn't a question.

He nodded.

"How could you?" Tears began to form in her hazel eyes, and she turned away, running back up the stairs two at a time.

She entered the dark bedroom, her eyes once again falling on Spike's bruised and assaulted form, lying unconscious on the bed. She searched for an unmarred area of his body to nudge. She wanted answers. As her eyes traveled over his nude form, her eyes fell on his ass. She sucked in a sharp breath. The flesh there was dark purple and torn. So, Angel, you not only beat my husband halfway to his second death, but you sodomized him too? Thought you loved me.

She shook Spike awake gently. "Baby," she murmured softly, "wake up. I'm going to fix you."

Spike groaned pitifully as his one unswollen eyelid fluttered open. He rolled over and hissed in pain as he put pressure on his injuries, vamping out. Buffy took his hands and pulled him to his feet. His open eye was glazed for a moment as he looked about the room, confused. Then it focused on Buffy. Bloody hell, he thought. Didn't want her to see me like this.

"I need you to drink, Spike. It'll fix you." She curled a small hand around the back of his neck and pulled his head down to her throat. His split lips touched her warm flesh a second before his fangs hit home. The powerful blood coursed through his veins, rejuvenating his torn tissues. He pulled away a few moments later, knowing not to take too much. Within a few minutes he was practically as good as new, although he would have a visible black eye for the next few days.

"Why?" she asked as she sat on the edge of the bed. "Why did Angel do that to you? More importantly, why did you let him?"

"It's a vamp thing, luv. Dominance, all that rot. The poofter decided he needed to prove he was still my better." He paused. "Dominance issues usually start with a fistfight and end when one vamp fucks the other. Look, don't get angry with Peaches, he just felt insecure. It's how it goes."

"How can I not get angry, Spike? He hurt you so badly..." Buffy broke off, her voice trembling. Spike brought a hand up and carressed her cheek.

"It's nothin', pet. I'm already all better." He leaned in and kissed her lightly. Buffy kissed him back, then pulled away.

"Are you sure?" she asked, her eyes wary.

He smiled slightly. "I'm sure. Now go take a shower. You're all sandy."

Buffy stood and walked into the bathroom, shrieking when he swatted her on the rear. Spike walked to the chair where he had tossed his duffel, and pulled out a new pair of jeans and a black tee shirt. He pulled them on slowly, careful not to jar his wounds, then sat on the bed with a tiny whimper. Guess I had it comin', he thought to himself, what with the torturin' and the soulmate marryin' and all. Just glad he didn't kill me.

That night, three warriors visited the Oracles, bearing the gift of a rare Picasso sketch.

"What knowledge is it that you seek, lower beings?" the female Oracle asked.

"We want to know how to find a vampiress named Darla, sire of Angelus," Buffy replied, her voice hitching on the final syllable.

"So you know of the Child of Light." The male Oracle stepped forward. "She that you seek will not be found until she wishes to be."

"Well that's bloody helpful," Spike grumbled. "So we're just supposed to wait?"

Buffy glared at Spike. "Language! You're talking to the voice of the Powers here, Spike!" she hissed.

"She that you call Darla will come to you when it is time. In the meantime, lower beings, I advise you to enjoy this gestation period. You have eight and a half months to do so."

"What do I do in the meantime?" Angel asked.

"You continue to brave the forces of darkness, warrior. Work your way toward your redemption."

The two vampires and slayer suddenly found themselves in the sewer tunnel once again. Buffy turned toward Angel. "Redemption? What was she talking about?"

"Later," he said, shrugging it off.

"Why later? Is it that big of a deal?"

Angel had crouched into fighting stance. "Later. There's a group of vampires coming toward us. About fifteen, I'd bet."

Each warrior whipped out a stake, and between the three of them made quick work of the vampires. They pocketed their stakes and returned to the Hyperion, where Buffy once again asked about Angel's redemption.

He was silent for a moment, a decidedly brooding look crossing his features. "There is a law firm--Wolfram and Hart--that tried to hide this from me. I broke in, and stole a prophecy scroll. Wesley translated it and found a section on me. It seems that after I stop umpteen apocalypses and help some old ladies across the street, I'll become human."

Buffy's jaw dropped open. "What?" she asked. She was so shocked that she missed Spike slinking up the stairs. "How can this--I mean..."

"I don't know. I didn't want to tell you, with the whole you-being-married-to-my-grandchilde thing--"

Angel cut off as an inhuman howl of pure agony ripped through the building. Buffy and Angel raced up the stairs, to find that Spike had locked himself in the room prepared for himself and Buffy.

"Spike?" she called. "Spike, open the door. Please."

Spike sat on the end of the bed, shirtless, fingering the stake that he had used so many times on so many vampires. He turned it over and over in his hand silently. Just once, he thought as he stared at the stake, his eyes red from crying, blood-tear tracks marring his white face. Just once and I wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore...

"Spike!" Buffy called, frantic. "Answer me!"

He lifted the stake to heart-level, preparing to drive the pointed tip through his heart, when the door shattered, pieces of the moulding flying across the room. Buffy stood in the doorway, her leg still lifted from the kick. She stared, frozen in shock as the Spike plunged the stake toward his own chest. A dark blur flew across the room, and it took a few moments for the blond vampire to realize he was no longer clutching the sharp stake. Angel, who had crashed into the wall with his momentum, sat up slightly dazedly, and winced as he pulled the stake out of his stomach.

Buffy ran to Spike and fell to her knees in front of him. "Why?" she whispered, her own tears streaming down her cheek. She reached up to cup his cheek, but he snarled at her and backed away. A harsh sob wracked her body, and she doubled over with the force of it. "Oh, God."

The feral vampire looked from his crying wife to his sire, who was on his feet once again, looking about to pounce, and broke down himself. Angel left the room silently, pausing in the broken doorway to look back once at the weeping blondes.

Spike's voice was weak and slightly roughened as he spoke. "You can have everything you wanted now. Peaches is gonna be human. He can take you into the sunlight, he can grow old with you."

Buffy looked up at her husband, shock evident on her face. Her tears were still flowing from her eyes as she whispered, "I used to think that Angel was everything I wanted," her voice trembling. "He's not. Not anymore."

"What?" Spike's head whipped up, his eyes seeking her out.

"Spike, I still love Angel. I always will. But we're different people now. And I see that more clearly now than ever before. I love you now, Spike. And what's more, you gave me the one thing I had given up on since my calling. A family." Suddenly Spike was on the floor next to her, hugging her tightly.

"Do you mean it?" he asked, needing desperately to be reassured.

Buffy entwined her limbs with his and nodded. "I love you, Spike," she whispered, dropping bittersweet kisses up and down his throat. "I love you. Please don't scare me like that again," she pleaded. "Promise me you'll never doubt that I want you more than anything else in this world, Spike."

Spike's eyes filled with new tears at her words. "I promise, luv," he murmured into her hair.

The lovers sat curled around each other, limbs intertwined, for a long while, whispering soothing words to one another.

Suddenly Spike stirred. "I can't promise that a stake will never go through this heart of mine, luv."

"What? Why?"

"Well, you've died once already. Next time, I'm going with you." He gave her a wry smile.

Buffy's pregnancy passed remarkably uneventfully. Toward the end of her ninth month, she and Spike moved to Los Angeles, in the hopes that Darla would show up at the Hyperion. However, as the due date drew nearer, and Darla still didn't appear, people began to worry.

Angel staggered into the hotel at three in the morning, covered from head to toe in bluish green demon slime. He struggled to keep his sense of smell from deadening at the odor that permeated from his body. "Blech," he groaned as the goo dripped onto the floor. The front door flew open. Standing in the entryway of the hotel was Darla. She was highly pregnant and clutching her distended stomach as if in pain.

"You fucking asshole, look what you did to me!" she shrieked as she waddled toward one of the couches, sitting down awkwardly and clenching her teeth.

Angel ran into the office, where he called Spike and Buffy, then asked Cordelia to make sure the in-labor vampiress wouldn't try to leave. Making a mental note to clean off the telephone after seeing that he had covered it in slime, he then ran upstairs and took a short shower, making sure he had gotten at least most of the dripping goo off of his skin. He tossed his clothing in a bag and pulled out a new outfit. Hmm. I could wear the charcoal pants with the ebony shirt... or the black leather pants with the jet shirt... These clothes he quickly pulled on, then ran back down the stairs.

Spike and Buffy had already arrived, and Buffy and Darla were now both panting with labor pains. They contintually threw verbal punches as they huffed around their contractions.

"Couldn't stay dead, huh, Slayer?" the blond vampiress asked, suddenly screaming around a particularly intense contraction.

"I could say the same for you-oooooooh! Spike, I'm going to kill you! Again!"

Suddenly Darla gasped, placing a hand on her stomach. "Angel, give me a stake," she ground out between clenched teeth.

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R to NC-17