Chapter 8

 

 

Buffy twisted in her bed; punching her pillow viciously she flopped back down and let out a totally unnecessary sigh.

 

Glancing over at the framed picture on her little nightstand she let the calm that it invoked cross over her.

 

A picture of William and bit taken before the Slayer’s death.

 

She’d nicked it right after he’d died. Needing something to remind her that he had once existed.

 

That he’d once been alive. That he’d once trusted her with the life of his most precious belonging.

 

We’re not all going to make it… you know that right?

 

Yeah… always knew I’d go out swinging

 

I’m counting on you… to protect her…

 

Till the end of the world… even if that happens to be tonight.

 

She’d tried… She’d stayed in Sunnydale serving penance for failing the Slayer in protecting Dawn. Stayed because she’d made a promise to the man she loved.

 

A man that would never love her back.

 

And now she knew she should have left as soon as the Slayer came back. Should have seen the darkness, the emptiness in his eyes and walked away.

 

Coming back from Heaven he wasn’t her Slayer anymore. He’d touched something that she would never, ever be able to touch.

 

She’d tried though. Tried to bring him to her and been beaten down, emotionally and physically for her efforts. But she’d loved him enough to stay.

 

One vampire got me hot…you’re just convenient.

 

She’d been obsessed enough to take him throwing Dru in her face time and again. But that last time… after he had beaten her for trying to stop him from trying to turn himself in for killing that girl.

 

She’d known he wasn’t guilty. Had thought by letting him take his rage out on her that he would see… but he hadn’t.

 

He’d just left her there and she’d barely made it to her crypt before the sun had come up. Had taken days before the bruises had started healing. By that time she had stopped listening to her heart and listened to his words and he had broke her.

 

She’d left Sunnydale that night. Had left her Slayer standing in the cemetery gone back to her crypt, packed her meager belongings into the DeSoto and left.

 

She’d spared only a passing thought for bit, had decided to settle a sum of money on her and then decided that she was going to go back to the old ways.

 

She’d find a way to be evil with the chip.

 

Been intent on that until Whistler had arrived on her doorstep with a mission for her. She’d laughed in his face until he’d presented Darla.

 

Pregnant Darla.

 

Then he’d presented her with the three humans that he’d enlisted to aid her. She’d laughed at him again… because he couldn’t seriously think she would consider working with humans after her trials with the Slayer and his bunch.

 

But he did.

 

Then he’d set her and the others up in the nifty little death trap that was now her living quarters.

 

She had told Whistler that the apartment wasn’t necessary. She would set her and Darla up in a nice crypt someplace safe and wait for the inevitable moment when Angelus would locate them.

 

Because she knew he would.

 

She’d actually been waiting for just that exact moment when he would come barging into her home (because she was a vampire, as was Darla and two vamps with no humans living on the premises… well she’d been braced for the worst in that scenario) and demand once again that she return home with him.

 

Besides… at least in a crypt she only had two entrances/exits to worry about in the damn apartment building she had about a hundred ways that Angelus could get to them.

 

Thankfully they’d found that spell. The one that had kept Dru standing at the threshold of the door had been originally put into place to keep a different vampire out.

 

A vampire that had been lurking in the shadows following her all about town… but never actually coming to her place of residence.

 

She frowned momentarily as she thought back to their last encounter… that night down by the docks. If the others hadn’t arrived when they did, if she’d been just a little weaker in her resolve she had no doubt that he would have lured her back into his grasp again.

 

She knew he had no qualms about utilizing his little talent in hypnosis on what he considered to be his wayward mate, his disobedient childe.

 

He would have drained her to unconscious and she would have woken to find herself in chains, Darla probably right next to her. Once more she cursed Whistler and his lamest of lame ideas.

 

She was protecting Darla.

 

Darla!

 

Even when she’d been loyal to Angelus and Druscilla she had hated the blond vampiress that was her great-grandsire with a bloody passion.

 

She’d only hated her more when she’d tossed the then souled Dru out on her bum. Because once Dru was gone Angelus had spent most of his time bemoaning the loss of his ‘mommy’.

 

It had taken her almost fifty years to get it through his head that his sire wasn’t returning to them.

 

They’d had about another thirty years before she’d had the hair-brained idea to take her Angel to Sunnydale.

 

He’d been so weak back then and her only thought had been that the Hellmouth would be the perfect place for him to regain his strength. The power emanating from it was so powerful…

 

She shook her head at her disillusionment.

 

The minute that she’d found out that Dru was in Sunnydale working hand in hand with the Slayer she should have dragged Angelus from that cursed town and never looked back.

 

But he continued getting weaker and weaker and she’d had no choice. She couldn’t lose him.

 

Then they’d finally found his cure.

 

Dru had been his cure the entire time and to think that she’d come so close to dusting her grandsire so many times prior to that.

 

Instead she’d cured her sire, her love... and had her legs smashed in the process. Spent months in that damn wheelchair trying not to curse her entire existence.

 

She still had Angelus then after all. Caring for her like she’d cared for him during his long illness.

 

She’d also had a strong Angelus that was determined to reassemble the Judge to rid the world of humanity.

 

If she’d known that the big blue guy was going to be the catalyst in a string of events that would send Dru straight into the Slayer’s bed and thereby bring about the return of Druscilla she would have probably have tried to do everything within her power to stop him.

 

The last thing she’d wanted was Dru back. But back she came, unsouled, evil as she remembered and looking to hurt everything and everyone even remotely attached to the Slayer.

 

And her.

 

Dru had set out to hurt her as well, reassuming her place within Angelus’ bed, utilizing every possible moment to flaunt her renewed relations with the male vampire in her face.

 

And she’d been confined to that damned wheelchair unable to take back what was hers. She’d been forced to watch the two of them in all their glory and her anger at both Dru and Angelus and even the Slayer had grown.

 

They never even realized that she could walk again until she joined forces with the Slayer to stop Dru. Angelus at least should have been able to sense that she was hiding something; he’d always been able to read her so easily.

 

But they’d never even realized it. She’d been walking for weeks before Dru and Angelus had dragged back the tomb containing Acathla. For weeks before Dru had outlined her plan to drag the entire world into hell.

 

And that right there had been her breaking point.

 

She’d been ready up to that point to just vanish. She’d been days within making her move and just leaving them both to whatever happened next. But once they brought that tomb back, once they opened it… she knew if they succeeded that there would be no place at all she could go.

 

Humanity would be gone.

 

She had to wonder if they’d even thought about what they were going to eat if they succeeded.

 

So she had aligned herself with the Slayer. Had made him a bargain.

 

I want to save the world.

 

You do remember that you’re a vampire right?

 

We like to talk big, vampires do… I’m going to destroy the world. That’s mostly just tough guy talk. Hanging out with your mates over a pint of blood. The truth is I like this world…

 

And she did.

 

And that had been her undoing. She made herself a bleedin’ white hat in order to save Angelus from his sire, the world from destruction and herself from the lonely existence that she could see without Angelus by her side.

 

And Angelus had never forgiven her for that.

 

And she’d still gone back to Sunnydale… she thought maybe at the beginning that she’d wanted the Slayer to just dust her after Angelus had left her.

 

To put her out of the misery that seemed never-ending.

 

Then the Initiative had happened and that chip that served as her little electronic conscience. Beeping and painful anytime she even tried to do what she felt was in her nature.

 

The Slayer had reluctantly brought her into his circle. At first because she’d had information that he’d desperately wanted. Then because she was another pair of hands, another bit of cannon fodder when the going got rough.

 

That spell that red had cast had been the beginning of the end for any shred of sanity that she had left.

 

It’s just so sudden. I don’t know what to say.

 

Just say yes and make me the happiest man on Earth.

 

Oh William! Of course it’s yes.

 

She’d tasted the Slayer that day. She’d had him in her arms willingly, happily. Sure they’d argued that day but what couple didn’t.

 

She’d been dejected when the spell had ended, she’d covered it of course with the cruel words that she was so used to saying.

 

For one small moment in time she’d had everything. She’d had a man that she thought had loved her wanting to marry her, wanting to spend the rest of her then in an instant it was gone and he thought her the lowest form of being on the planet.

 

But she’d stayed. Tried the evil thing again and almost got her head ripped off. Tried the good thing again and been used like she was an old newspaper.

 

They’d thought she’d done everything she had because she wanted to be close to William.

 

And maybe at first she had.

 

But she’d loved him with a passion that she hadn’t felt since those first years with Angelus.

 

When everything was new and bright.  Of course it had all turned out the same. Angelus had wanted a replacement for his missing sire. William wanted a replacement for his missing lover.

 

“I’m past pathetic at this point,” she muttered to herself turning onto her side. The sound of a soft knock caused her to leap to her feet defensively before she realized that Angelus wouldn’t knock at the door.

 

He’d just knock it down… then be stopped by that barrier that was in place.

 

Moving cautiously out to the living room she saw Gunn standing by the door, stake in hand waiting for her to indicate what she wanted.

 

“Who is it?” he called when he saw her wave her hand at the door with expectant eyes, then wide eyes when she heard the voice on the other side.

 

“Uh… I’m looking for Buffy?” the soft unsure voice of her Slayer came from the other side of the door.

 

“Fuck me,” she muttered under her breath as she shook her head.

 

“Think that’s probably what he’s here for babe,” Gunn just smirked at her.

 

“You’re funny,” Buffy growled at him, “You should take that on the road.”

 

“I’ll wait til our pregnant vamp gives birth… it’ll give me more material,” he grinned at her.

 

“Who’s at the door?” a quiet Darla stood in the doorway to her room. Hand protectively over her protruding stomach Buffy almost laughed when she saw the look of fear on her once great-grandsire now sibling’s face.

 

Once Darla would have been the thing feared on the other side. Now she feared the other side. Feared Angelus finding her before her baby was born and safe.

 

“Hello?” William called a hint of confusion in his voice from the other side.

 

“Is that…?” Darla’s wide eyes focused on Buffy before going back to the door.

 

“The Slayer yes,” Buffy let out a long suffering sigh dragging a hand through her hair before letting her eyes meet Gunn’s once more.

 

“What do you want me to do?” Gunn asked softly. “I can get rid of him…” he left the sentence open. His position quite clear on the matter of the Slayer.

 

He had been more than vocal in his opinion that Buffy needed to deal with William Summers. Needed to sit down with the Slayer and have an open, honest conversation.

 

She hadn’t wanted to tell him that the only way that the Slayer and she would have an open, honest conversation was when the he finally stopped lying to himself.

 

And admitted that he had cared about her just a tiny bit.

 

“Give me a minute,” Buffy scowled at him. “I need to change into something else.”

 

Gunn studied her for a minute before frowning at her. “You’re not going to try and put me between the two of you are you? Because I like my head right where it is on my shoulders and your Slayer looks like he could be a jealous man.”

 

“You’d have to be shaggin’ Dru in order for the Slayer to be jealous,” she growled propelling Darla back towards her room.

 

“You don’t really believe that do you?” Darla asked softly as she once more stepped inside the confines of her room.

 

She’d made it into quite the little nest. Everything that she could ever need in that little room.

 

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it Darla.”

 

“He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t care just a little bit,” the vampire who at one time had been all for Dru staking her immediately after her turning said sympathetically.

 

“He’s just here to back up Dru… it doesn’t mean anything,” Buffy said softly not meeting the eyes of the once older woman.

 

“Buffy…”

 

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

 

 

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Chapter 9

 

 

 

Charles Gunn had to wonder when his life had turned into an afterschool special.

 

In one corner he had the poster child for unwed motherhood, in the other a picture of domestic violence, the lovebirds that made you nauseous, and then there was him.

 

People would probably term him the normal one… even though he’d been hunting vampires since he was thirteen and had seen horrors that kept him as far from normal as you could get.

 

He’d first hunted demons with his gang, then with Riley and Faith under Whistler’s supervision.

 

And then he’d met the vampire named Buffy or Rena as she had preferred to be called at the time. She’d been hiding then, now that she was no longer hiding they were allowed to use her ‘real’ name.

 

He of course kept using the nickname solely to piss her sire off. They’d come a long way in one short month.

 

Because when he’d first met her he’d been of the mind of staking first and accepting her help later.

 

He’d thought all vampires evil, no in between even though he was aware that the world itself was a formidable shade of grey.

 

But Whistler had insisted that Buffy / Rena had a place within their small group. Had a place within the world in general. So he had grudgingly accepted her within their ranks, grumbling the entire time about her presence. It had taken almost two weeks before he came to the realization that he actually liked the small blond vampiress.

 

There was something within her that called to him, that reminded him of himself, of his sister.

 

Loneliness, a desperate well of it. And an unquenchable desire to belong to something, to someone.

 

When he had realized that she had somehow become a friend, and one that was in pain to boot he had done what any friend would and offered his shoulder.

 

She had taken his offer after staring at him for close to ten minutes in shock and then had quietly spilled her life story.

 

She had talked for hours, about Angelus, about Dru, about the Slayer.

 

She’d waxed poetic about her relationships with her sire and with her Slayer and Gunn hadn’t said a word the entire time she’d talked. He’d had the distinct feeling that she needed someone to hear her for once. When she’d gotten towards the end, to the time when she’d left the Hellmouth and ended up in Chicago he’d been surprised to hear the tone of her voice change.

 

The iciness that filled it was an extreme change from her soft, heartsick ramblings. Watching her rub her arms, her eyes far away as she’d talked about her last days in Sunnydale, about her last days with the Slayer Gunn had abruptly realized where the bruises that had marred her skin when he’d first met her had come from.

 

The Slayer had hurt her… had hurt her badly since she had still had the wounds that the Slayer had inflicted upon her when he had met her. It had taken her weeks to heal from those and Gunn had been surprised at the anger that had coursed through him at the thought of the Slayer lifting his hand against one who had sworn her love to him.

 

With a sigh he turned to the front door. As much as he was loath to admit it… and he would never admit it to Buffy’s face he was looking forward to meeting the Slayer.

 

To meet the man that Buffy so obviously loved, even though she swore she was over him, to meet the man that would choose the dark-haired vampiress over the blonde, who would throw his relationship with the other in the face of an obviously heart-shattered woman.

 

So he waited patiently, finally starting to flip the locks that secured it as soon as he heard the second door close. Drawing a deep breath he flung the door open and found himself face to face with a young brown haired man.

 

Negligently bracing one arm on the door jam he ran his eyes up and down the body of the man before him.

 

After he’d finally had the ‘honor’ of meeting Angelus, seeing the effect that the dark-haired vampire on her Gunn had been positive, so positive that he would have bet money on it that the Slayer would physically resemble her sire.

 

Obviously he’d been wrong and would have lost money on that.

 

His first glimpse of the Slayer in the shadows earlier, and his better look at that same man now showed him how wrong he was… because the man standing before him was nothing like what he’d expected… and Gunn thought that Buffy just might be wrong about the strength of feelings the Slayer had for her.

 

The man in front of him was practically seething with jealousy.

 

“Can I help you?” Gunn asked with a lazy smirk.

 

William’s eyes narrowed as he studied the man before him. Shirtless, standing before him in a pair of baggy sweats.

 

“I’m looking for Buffy,” he shoved past the other man.

 

“She’s… unavailable at the moment… why don’t you come back later? Say late afternoon?” Gunn held the door open gesturing towards it.

 

“Why don’t you just go get her… and I’ll wait,” William said pointedly, glancing around the room he stood in its center. Waiting for the other man to move.

 

“Why?” Gunn asked pushing the door closed he walked slowly over to the obviously jealous Slayer. “So you can beat on her some more? I know who you are Summers, I know what you are and I saw what you did to her… Do you even know or care how long it took her to heal from that beating you gave her?”

“That’s between Buffy and me,” William muttered stiffly.

 

“See that’s where you’re wrong. What affects Buffy affects me now…” Gunn grinned as he moved right into William’s face.

 

“She may be sleeping with you, but she loves me.”

 

“Loved… past tense there Slayer. Do you really think she could still love you after all the pain you put her through…?”

 

“That’s enough Charles,” they both turned at the sound of the subject of their discussions voice. Gunn hid a smile at the fact that Buffy had indeed changed.

 

From the sweats that she normally wore to a pair of blood red silk pajamas. Her hair pulled back from her face into a ponytail she looked young and innocent.

 

Two things that she was decidedly not.

 

“I was just telling the Slayer here how things were now,” Gunn muttered winking at the vampiress as she slowly moved into the room.

 

“I ‘eard,” she murmured touching his arm gently, a soft stroke down his arm and Gunn could swear he heard William growl behind him. “Why don’t you go check on Riley and Faith?”

 

“Don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone with him… might turn violent or something,” he turned to glare at the Slayer, Buffy in turn touching his cheek softly.

 

“You worry to much… I can ‘andle the Slayer.”

 

Gunn smiled down at her before leaning over to press a soft kiss to her forehead, best not to agitate the Slayer any further than they had to… though he had to admit that riling him up had been fun. Although now the task of calming him back down fell to the woman in front of him.

 

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised as he grabbed his T-shirt from the back of the couch.

 

“Don’t hurry back on my account,” William said with a fake smile planted on his face.

 

Gunn just rolled his eyes at him as he yanked the door open. He really didn’t feel comfortable leaving the two of them alone together but despite the bad feelings he had he intended to give them enough time to work through their differences. But hopefully not enough time that William could cause any more bodily harm to his friend.

 

Besides he knew that if William became violent Darla would be on the phone in an instant requesting help.

 

“I can’t believe you sleep with that guy,” William muttered as he ran a hand through his hair. Now that he was alone with her he had no idea how he was supposed to handle this.

 

How much groveling was going to be required to get her to walk away from the life she had seemingly made here over night and return home with him?

 

“What are you doin’ ‘ere Slayer?” Buffy didn’t even deign to comment on that statement. Instead she cut right to the chase.

 

The sooner she got the Slayer out of her apartment, the sooner she could go back to nursing her broken heart… and plotting Angelus’ demise, and the birth of Darla’s baby. She had too many things on her plate right now to worry about William and Dru.

 

“You know why I’m here.”

 

“I do?” Buffy settled herself on the couch watching her Slayer pace slowly. Tapping a finger against her lips she looked as if she was in intense concentration. “The only thing you ever wanted from me was a good shag… that why you’re ‘ere then? Dru not satisfyin’ you so you thought ‘ey we’re ‘ere might as well let Buffy fill in for ‘er.”

 

“You know that’s not… Dru and I aren’t like that,” William said softly.

 

“Really?” slowly she rose to her feet, stalking across the room she stopped in front of him. “Curse not taken care of after all then? Thought you ‘ad all your baskets in a row finally.”

 

“Dru and I… we’re not together.”

 

“What?” she stared up at him in confusion. She could have sworn…

 

“I lied okay… Dru and I aren’t together, we never got back together…”

 

“But… you said…”

 

“We’re just friends now, maybe not even that,” he laughed harshly. “When I came back, when I went to see her… we… it was so awkward you know… we’re so different now than we were.”

 

“You lied to me?” Buffy backed away from him slowly. “Everything might have been sex and violence but the one thing we did ‘ave was ‘onesty… I knew you ‘ated me, I knew you were using me… you were at least ‘onest about that.”

 

“Buffy…”

 

“You threw Dru in my face Slayer, you know ‘ow much I ‘ate her but you still did it. You threw ‘er between us like she was some paragon of greatness that I could never ‘ope to achieve… But if you remember she was the one that walked away from you, I stayed, I fought with your Scooby’s, protected the bit… even after everything you did to me, everything you said I stayed… and you still threw her in my face… do you ‘ave any idea ‘ow much that ‘urt me?” she spat at him.

 

“I had to do something.”

 

“Why? So you could see me cry? See me beg you to stay with me?” she sneered. “Sorry I disappointed you luv.”

 

“You never disappointed me.”

 

“I can’t do this again Slayer,” Buffy closed her eyes drawing an unneeded breath as she wrapped her arms around herself, looking more like a lost child then an over hundred year old demon. “It ‘urt to much the first go round, bein’ with you and knowing you didn’t even like me, much less care about me. I don’t think I’m up for another go say whatever you’re ‘ere to say and then leave… forget where I live and don’t come back.”

 

“I do care about you…” William said quietly. So quietly that for a moment Buffy was sure that she hadn’t heard him right. Opening her eyes she found him standing right before her his eyes boring into hers intently.

 

“Please don’t…”

 

“I don’t know if its love… I don’t know if I even want it to be,” he murmured cupping her cheek softly. “You’re not the easiest person to care about you know… you’re rude and brash and…”

 

“Got the point already pet no need to bash me over the ‘ead with it,” she muttered looking up at him. “You know you’re not the easiest person to love either… didn’t want to love you, didn’t even want to like you, but it just ‘appened.”

 

“I know it’s not going to be easy… I know a lot of people are going to have a problem with it, and I don’t even know if we’ll actually work out in the long run but not having you around this last month… it made me realize something,” he smiled down at her. “I missed you, I worried about you.”

 

“I was fine…you know I can take care of myself, been doin’ it for a long time before I met you.”

 

“I know… So does this mean you’ll come back to Sunnydale with me?”

 

Buffy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously even as she leaned into his gentle touch. He’d never touched her like this before, she imagined if she concentrated hard enough that she could actually feel his caring. But if he was doing this just to lure her to the Hellmouth and spit on her again…

 

“This isn’t just some elaborate scam to get me to go back to Sunny’ell is it?”

 

“No…” William looked away sheepishly. “Dru said I had to be honest with you, that if I didn’t tell you the truth that she would.”

 

“Dru? My grandsire… sent you ‘ere to tell me the truth?” she asked in disbelief.

 

“Yeah… why?”

 

“Do you know ‘ow bizarre that sounds?”

 

“I know, but there’s stuff going on… prophecy stuff and Dru and Giles both say that you’re supposed to be in Sunnydale so we can protect you.”

 

“Don’t need no one to protect me Slayer,” Buffy muttered stubbornly.

 

“I know you can take care of yourself, yay girl power and all that,” William grinned. “But still…”

 

“I can’t leave just yet anyway… I’ve got things I need to take care of ‘ere.”

 

“Then I’ll help you, I’m not leaving here without you.”

 

“Then I guess we’re at a standstill pet.”

 

“Guess we are,” William grumbled. Touching her cheek again he gave into the intense desire flooding him, the one that told him to fold her into his arms and hold her.

 

To prove that he could be gentle with her.

 

To prove that the relationship between them was not going to be fraught with violence this time.

 

With an unnecessary sigh Buffy wound her arms around him laying her head on his chest, closing her eyes. “What am I gonna do with you Slayer?”

 

“I’ve got some ideas… you know if you’re open for suggestions.”

 

 

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Chapter 10

 

 

 

Darla allowed the door to close gently behind her. She would never admit it to Buffy, would probably never admit it to herself but she had worried once she had realized who was on the other side of the door.

 

And it had nothing to do with the fact that the last time she’d seen the Slayer Dru had been staking her.

 

It had more to do with the damn soul she seemed to have acquired.

 

Whistler had warned her that there was a good chance that the baby’s soul would bleed into her, they were sharing blood among other things.

 

The soul had to be the reason, because years past she would never have worried over her grandchilde sibling her mind reminded her.

 

Quietly moving around her room she ran her hands along the nick knacks that she had collected over the past few months.

 

Whistler had been the one hiding her to begin with, when Buffy had suddenly arrived in Chicago a month earlier he had passed the pregnant vampire off to her.

 

She wouldn’t voice her worry to anyone else but she was scared now. Even more so as she continued to move inevitably closer to her delivery date.

 

She was a vampire, vampires weren’t supposed to have children and besides her she’d never known one that had ever got pregnant, could a vampire even successfully give birth?

 

The few times that she’d heard of a pregnant woman being turned had resulted in the newly made vampire miscarrying within hours.

 

Definitely not news that had boded well for her.

 

But even with the fear that continued to flood her she had enjoyed moments of the pregnancy. She’d been a prostitute before she’d been turned and had never thought that she’d have children… ever. But by some miraculous twist of fate she was pregnant, she was going to have a child… and even if she wasn’t there to watch him, she knew it was a boy, grow up she knew that he’d be well-protected, well-cared for.

 

She just hadn’t asked Buffy for that favor yet… although she was almost positive that she wouldn’t be refused. Buffy liked to talk big but inside she was just a big softy.

 

Big bad, Darla snorted, Buffy still thought of herself that way and seeing as how the now older vampire was helping her she hadn’t tried to dissuade her from thinking so.

 

But Buffy was as far from being a big bad as Angelus was from being a good guy.

 

Pressing a hand to her stomach she smiled gently as she felt the child within her do several back flips in a row.

 

He was certainly energetic. More so during the night then the day. Like his mother, like his aunt, possibly even like whoever his father ended up being her baby was a night owl. Of course the closer she got to actually delivering him the more time spent kicking her in the stomach or the bladder that thankfully she didn’t need to use. If she’d been human some of those kicks might have been painful… not to mention inconvenient.

 

Settling herself on her bed she craned an ear and when she didn’t hear any visible noises indicating that the Slayer and Buffy had resorted to fisticuffs she relaxed, pulling the comforter up over her. More for comfort than for any need of additional warmth.

 

She tried not to question the worry that she felt for the other vampire, tried to chalk it up to the fact that if something happened to Buffy there would be no one but three humans to protect her from her sire.

 

But another part of her actually liked Buffy, spending a month in close quarters with the other female had shown her sides of Buffy that she’d never known existed.

 

She had to wonder how she’d missed the tenderness and carrying that Buffy was exhibiting without a soul to her. She chalked it up to not wanting to see it, but she knew that it had been there. Remembering the way that Buffy had cared for Angelus, the devotion that she had showered on the male… it was no wonder Angelus was furious now.

 

When she’d been running with him, after their ill fated attempt to turn Dru back to the side of darkness she’d had to listen to him rant about the fact that Buffy had chosen the Slayer over him.

 

Him.

 

He’d been furious about that and while part of him had wanted to remind him that he’d left the younger vampiress first, the other part was intent on both staking her claim within her new sire’s life and bed.

 

All for naught it had seemed. As soon as she had figured out she was pregnant she had fled.

 

Scared for her child, scared for herself.

 

Whistler had popped into her way as she was hiding out in Las Vegas. An easy city to get lost in she had been easily found by the tackily dressed demon warning of danger to her child, danger to her… he had protected her until they got to Chicago where he’d said he would arrange for someone else to take over her care.

 

She’d never in a million years would have imagined that her protection would be Buffy.

 

In fact she would have bet even money on Buffy laughing in his face then killing him.

 

But the woman she was faced with was most decidedly different than the one she remembered. The bruises marring her pale flesh, the innate sadness etched on her features… Buffy had laughed but she’d also agreed to help.

 

And that’s where they were now, sitting in an apartment, waiting for the inevitable moment when Angelus would finally track them down.

 

She hoped that her baby was safe by then but she had a deep sense of foreboding running through her that said that they were quickly running out of time.

 

She lifted her head slightly when her door slowly opened her eyes meeting an amused Gunn’s.

 

“Slayer leave?” he asked glancing down the hall at Buffy’s closed door.

 

“No,” Darla smiled she stilled as she listened hearing the low sounds of murmuring coming from her siblings room. “They’re talking.”

 

“No sex… I would have bet that’s what he would have been here for,” Gunn shook his head easing the door closed behind him.

 

“You sound disappointed,” Darla smirked as he flopped down across the foot of her bed.

 

“She cares about him, still loves him even after everything he did.”

 

“Sometimes love doesn’t make any sense… besides he cares about her to,” frowning she pushed a pillow under her back for support as she sat. “She doesn’t see it but he does.”

 

“Well her seeing it might have something to do with the fact that he beat on her for most of their ‘relationship’.”

 

“You know if she forgives him for that you’re going to have to as well… you might be her friend but she’ll side with him.”

 

“I know,” Gunn tapped his foot as he contemplated the ceiling. Idly wondering who had taken the time to paint glow in the dark stars on it. “I just don’t want to see her get hurt again, she’s been hurt to much by that one as it is.”

 

“That’s noble of you Charles,” Darla leaned forward stroking his cheek slightly. “Buffy can care for herself but I don’t think it hurts if she has others looking out for her. Sometimes love can blind you to the one you loves faults… and I think William Summers has a great many faults.”

 

“You care about her to,” Gunn studied her before he returned his eyes to the ceiling.

 

“She’s different than the Buffy that I remember,” Darla shook her head. “She’s not nearly as impulsive as she used to be… I can vividly remember Druscilla threatening to stake her about a hundred times right after Angelus first turned her… and she’s quieter than she used to be as well. Like she’s holding everything in.”

 

“Well then we’ll just have to make sure that she doesn’t keep doing that. Bottling all the stuff up is no good,” he stated decisively. “Hey Darla?”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“Who painted stars on your ceiling?”

 

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Buffy laid almost stiffly next to the Slayer. He was talking quietly, explaining about the prophecy that had brought him and Dru and Xander to Chicago after her. Trying to explain the danger that he could feel that she was in and part of her wanted, desperately wanted to tell him about Darla down the hall.

 

Pregnant Darla down the hall.

 

But she bit her tongue and let her Slayer have his voice.

 

There would after all be plenty of time to delve into the mystery that was Darla at a later time.

 

A much, much later time.

 

Maybe after she understood what exactly was happening. Maybe after she figured out why it was so imperative that she protect the other blonde.

 

“Are you listening to me?” she was shaken from her musings by William’s voice. Glancing up to his waiting expression she realized that he must have asked her something and she had totally missed it.

 

“Not really luv,” she said honestly. Turning on her side she rested her hand on his stomach, tracing idly as she felt the muscles in his abdomen quiver under her touch. With a hint of a smile on her lips she rested her head on his shoulder.

 

“I just got finished explaining why you need to come back to Sunnydale as soon as possible and you missed the whole thing? I mean I even explained the prophecy,” he frowned as he unconsciously shifted his body closer to hers, lending his body heat to her. “What I understood of it anyway.”

 

“And I already told you Slayer that I can’t go anywhere… not until… until I’m done here,” she murmured nipping at the skin on his shoulder.

 

“You know if you would tell me what you’re doing here I could help,” he said breathlessly as she shifted her body slightly and slid her hands under the hem of the T-shirt he was wearing, her cool hands dancing along his skin.

 

“Got all the help I need,” she murmured as her busy hands pushed his T-shirt up his chest, baring skin that she kissed gently as he lifted his body. Pulling the interfering garment off, he tossed it aside as he wrapped his arms around her sliding her slowly up his body.

 

He groaned as his hands moved under the little red silk shirt she was wearing. His fingers gliding easily along her skin as she helped him to remove it, when they finally came back together they were lying chest to chest.

 

“My little furnace,” she mumbled her tone amused as she kissed his chin, his nose, his cheeks, everywhere on his face but the lips that were now craving her attention.

 

“I missed you,” he said desperately, fierce, but gentle hands cupping her face as he stared into her eyes before he pulled her forward.

 

And for once she believed him. He could never hide the emotions within his eyes, when he had looked at her with hatred, anger, disapproval it had all been in his eyes… the ones that could never lie.

 

“I missed you,” he murmured again against her lips before he captured her mouth with his. Rolling her onto her back he settled above her, his lips, his tongue demanding her response and with a moan she opened to him.

 

Tongue darting out to taste his, tempting him to deepen the kiss, tempting him to possess her like she wanted him to.

 

For the first time she let herself believe that he cared, she imagined she could feel it in his kiss, in his hands, in the way that he stroked her skin so gently where before he’d always been so rough.

 

She gasped when she felt his fingers slide beneath the silk bottoms she had been wearing, was only slightly amazed that he managed to get them down her hips and legs and off her body without the weight of his body leaving hers, without his lips stopping in their wicked assault on hers.

 

And the whole while her fingers trembled as they fought to unfasten the jeans he’d been wearing. Determined that if she was going to be naked and bare in front of him then he would be naked and bare in front of her.

 

His fingers glided back up her legs, detouring between their bodies she arched into him another moan issuing from her lips as she felt his fingers separate her, sliding within her, stroking her in a way that she had thought to never feel again… at least never with him.

 

“God pet what do you do to me?” she tore her lips from his, gasping as he flicked his thumb gently over her distended nubbin, then screaming into the lips that recaptured hers as he sent her careening into her first orgasm.

 

Lips moving over her cheeks, down her neck he rose above her, smiling impishly down at her as she stared dazed up at him. Never moving his weight off of her he slid the jeans that she had forgotten off his body, tossing them to the growing pile of clothes on the floor.

 

“Probably the same thing you do to me,” he murmured as he relaxed back on her. Her legs moving to cradle his hips within their confines he rocked against her. She could feel him hard against her, moving against her, enticing her to take him within her and prove that she still loved him.

 

With a sigh she touched his face gently. “I love you William,” she said quietly. So quietly that for a moment he thought he’d imagined it, her lips never moved but the smile on her face was beatific.

 

“I…” he started, never finished as her lips touched his this time. She later wouldn’t be able to tell him if was to keep him from declaring his love or to keep him from declaring his hate. Her Slayer was a tricky one after all and she wouldn’t put it past him to lull her into a false sense of security and then smack her upside the head with a two by four.

 

Besides she knew, just knew that if he told her he loved her she would follow him anywhere he wanted. Darla, Gunn, Faith and Riley be damned.

 

Arching up into him her breasts pressed firmly against his chest she could feel the trembling that he couldn’t quite contain. She knew that he had to be aching in frustration, so close yet so far away from where his body desperately wanted to be. Where her body wanted him to be.

 

One tiny hand wormed its way between their bodies, hand enclosing around his hard shaft. Her mouth captured his surprised groan and under his her body moved restlessly.

 

That tiny hand slid up and down the impressive length within its grasp several times before she positioned him, the wetness seeping from her covering the tip of him as she removed her hand and he slowly pushed forward.

 

Tearing his lips from her he buried his face in her neck as he slowly, so slowly, slid to the hilt within her… then stopped.

 

She could feel the tension cording his body as he held himself still, fighting against his body’s instincts to drive into her over and over again, fighting against her attempts to entice him into moving.

 

Her hands sliding gently over his back, just the tips of her nails touching his skin in a way she knew that he loved. Same hands moving to his chest to flick against the nipples that resided there, tracing the muscles trembling in his abdomen.

 

“Slayer,” she groaned as he propped himself up on his elbows staring down at her, her legs moved restlessly against his.

 

Capturing her face within his hands he forced her eyes to meet his and within them he could see the same need in his reflected back at him. Lowering his face so that it was mere inches from hers he stared into her eyes searching for something indescribable, something that he was sure that he would never find there. And then he found it, staring back at him with love and hope.

 

And suddenly with a certainty that he’d never felt before, with a happiness and joy that he hadn’t felt since the early days with Dru he knew what he wanted, knew what he needed… knew what he loved beyond everything else.

 

“I love you,” he murmured as his lips touched hers reverently. The eyes that had been so close to closing snapped open and it was her turn to stare at him. Confusion etched on her lovely features and he knew with certainty that he would never allow anyone, even him to harm her again.

 

Tears filled her eyes and her arms wound around his body, clutching him tightly to her as they leaked from her eyes. “Oh god,” she sobbed, her body clenching around him as she climaxed a second time without his even having moved within her.

 

Then he was moving, spurred on by her climax, the one he wanted to join her in he began thrusting. Desperate for her, for the pleasure only she had been able to gift him with since his return, for the release from months of hiding his feelings for her.

 

They moved together as if they had never been apart, as if there had never been another for them but each other.

 

Against his neck she mindlessly murmured her love for him, fighting against the demands of the demon within her that stated that she claim him, desperate to claim him, to prove to her grandsire, to her sire to everyone that the Slayer was hers.

 

With a groan William arched his neck towards her, almost instinctively understanding the turmoil she was going through, instinctively knowing what she needed, what she wanted.  And surprisingly it was the same as his wants, his needs.

 

The need to be a part of something, a part of someone.

 

To him.

 

“Please,” he murmured.

 

“Luv?” her voice was almost desperate in her need. With him moving steadily between her legs she would never understand the gentleness to his hands as he guided her to his neck moaning as he felt her features shift, her human face melting into the demons façade.

 

“Love you,” she mumbled as her tongue traced the mark her sire had left so many years ago. “Never hurt you, never leave you,” she stated as her fangs slid into the warm flesh under her lips, over her William’s body bowed with the force of his climax, and she could only imagine the expression on his face. His mouth open in a silent scream, his head thrown back as he thrust into her wildly. Sliding her fangs from his skin her own body arched, and she buried her face in his neck once more to muffle the sound of the scream she couldn’t contain.

 

And then suddenly her arms were full of her Slayer as his gave out and he collapsed on her. Wrapping her arms and legs around him, with his softening length still buried within her she cooed to him, licking her mark on his neck.

 

And suddenly life was so very good.

 

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