"You are not wrecking my kitchen!" Grabbing two handfuls of his shirt, Buffy snapped Spike back just before his fist could connect with Angel's face. Angel was already on his feet, chair and beer bottle overturned. In the stunned moment that followed, it was apparent that Angel had started up not to defend himself, but Jemima. He stood planted between her and the wall. She peered around him, blanched and wide-eyed.

Spike took this in with a jerk that also freed him from Buffy's hand. "I wasn't going to hurt her, you great pillock!"

"Buffy's right. We can't fight in here." Angel was as grave and calm as a monument.

"You can't fight at all!" Jemima stepped out, climbing over the toppled chair to stand between them. "No fighting! I didn't bring him here for that."

"Shouldn't have brought him here at all. Bloody cheek. How'd he get in, anyway?"

Buffy was already applying paper towels to the beer puddle on the floor. She moved slowly, her attention fixed on the clean-up as if there was nothing else going on around her. "Wherever I am is home for my children. This is Jemmie's house too. She can invite."

"The fuck she can. You—out."

"Papa—don't start off like this. Please."

Angel picked up the chair, then stooped to help Buffy with the blotting. She glanced up at him, impassive, as if he was a stranger who'd paused to assist her in the street.

Angel stared, mouth opening in awe. "Buffy ... my God." He pitched his voice so only she heard. "Con-congratulations. It is congratulations, isn't it?"

"When it isn't oh shit get me out of this, or, more to the point, oh shit, get this out of me, yeah." She straightened up with a sigh and a big wad of wet towels, pushing her hair out of her face with one hand as she threaded past Jemima to throw them away. "Spike, aren't you going to offer Angel another beer? Or some blood?"

Both women regarded him as if he was being merely boorish, rather than either dangerous or perfectly within his rights. With a growl, he stalked after Buffy to the other end of the big kitchen. "You! You're supposed to be in my corner, remember?"

She blinked. She might almost have looked bored, except he knew what her expression really contained: disappointment at the blasting of their night's communion, dread of a long tiresome scene. "I thought we'd finally got to the big Que Sera Sera sing-a-long."

"So you knew he'd be here? You planned this?"

She sighed again. "No. I really really didn't."

They glanced back at the troublemakers, as if they weren't perfectly within earshot. Jemima, hesitating by the counter el, partly to mostly cloudy, and beyond, by the table, Angel, looking like he'd prefer to be facing something whose neck he could break.

"What is he doing here?" Buffy said.

Jemima frowned in that way that Spike couldn't help but find adorable. "He ... we missed each other."

Angel, on the other hand, wasn't adorable at all.

"Oh bloody hell—girl's only been here a couple of days, you prancing twat. LA's probably falling to shit while you come gallumphing after your bit of skirt! 'Cept she's not yours, so you can get that notion out of your thick head straight off!"

"Spike. I don't 'gallumph.'"

"Don't you? Well, my bad, then."

"Sometimes a short sharp shock is best. Papa, I brought him here this morning so we could all just ... just deal and get over it. And be a family. Which we already are, whether you like it or not."

At that, Spike checked with Buffy. She was holding her head up the way she did when facing some monster she suspected might be slightly too big to take on alone. Her eyes were glossy, edging into moist. The corner of her mouth twitched.

He couldn't be angry at her. Not after the night they'd had. Not when she looked so shiningly, imperfectly beautiful. In anticipation of Jemima being there, she'd bound a scarf around her neck to hide the bite-wound; the effect was to make her look like a blown flower on a fragile stem.

We must love one another or die. That sounded good when she told it to him last night, when they were alone. But now the Despoiler was here in his house, his daughter wanting him to be treated like a goddamn son-in-law, and it was too fucking much.

When Buffy spoke, she said the last thing he expected. "Y'know, I haven't told her yet. I thought you'd like to, Spike."

Jemima started forward, the question of Angel forgotten. "Told me what? What is it, what's wrong?"

He couldn't resist taking Buffy, so golden and beloved, in his arms, or reaching out to pull Jemima in too. Angel, stranded on the far side of the room, wouldn't, he knew, miss a bit of the nuance in this display of his riches. "Your mum's gonna give you a baby sister."

"She—what? But how?"

Angel might as well have been nowhere. In her astonishment, Jemima had forgotten him.

Of course, that would only last a moment. While Buffy told her news, and Jemima gasped and questioned and hugged her mother, Spike couldn't help peeking at the other man. He stood abstracted, half turned away, gazing out at the choppy grey water of the bay beneath the overcast sky, his big hands dangling at his sides. He might have been waiting for a train to take him on some routine journey, except for the suggestion, in the line of his stolid profile, of tightly-reined impatience.

Still in her parent's arms, Jemima craned around to him. "Angel—!"

He didn't move. "I heard."

"He congratulated me already," Buffy said. "He knew as soon as I stepped into the room."

Jemima looked at Buffy then, as if she wasn't quite making sense. Gave them both her sad, pensive expression, the kind that could melt steel. "Why can't we just get on together? You could if you wanted to, Papa! This doesn't have to be such a death-match! Especially now!" Uncurling herself from the family embrace, she crossed back to Angel. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. You were right, coming to the house wasn't a good idea."

At least the bloody bugger had that much sense, to not to want to come here. But he'd come on anyway, because girl could already lead him about like a trained bear on a string.

Milo had never given her anything like that sort of consideration. With him, if Jemmie said white, it had therefore to be black.

Not that that mattered a tinker's fart, because Angel was still the exactly wrong man for her, and—

Buffy laid her forehead against his shoulder. Her skin through the thin cotton was hot, and she rolled her head as if to pass that heat to him. She whispered. "Do you really want to push your daughter away? You will, if you go on like this. "

"Don't want him in my house. It's one thing—one thing—" He wasn't quite sure what he was trying to say the one thing was, but Buffy was already speaking again, and there was something about having her whisper to him alone, something to the way she held his arm and pressed herself against him, that was almost irresistibly compelling. He had to listen.

"Oh Spike, isn't it like how we were, in the beginning? You had nothing to recommend you, as far as any of my friends could see. Everybody wanted to break us up. Remember—Willow and Xander burned you out of your crypt, to make you leave town. Instead I brought you to live with me."

"'Course I remember." He remembered how miserable she'd been then, dwelling on the narrow edge of despair, and how he'd dared to think he could pull her back from that edge. Which was incredibly and abundantly arrogant of him, and should've resulted in disaster. "But love, it's not the same—"

"Don't you see? That was the beginning of my happiness. Our happiness."

She smiled—how radiant she was! Her happiness. Was still half-way incredible to him that he could ever have a hand in that, let alone be it. But she was showing him that it was, and he couldn't disbelieve her.

"Oh love. Love ...."

"Are you really going to stand here and deny Jemmie hers? I mean—can you really do that, Spike? Especially now?"

"Bloody hell." Jemima looked so tiny at Angel's side, her hand swallowed in his great paw. An image flashed into his mind, unbidden, unbearable, indelible, of how easily he could be too much for her. He'd been too much for so many thousands of women, torn up even before he got his fangs out. Spike squeezed his eyes shut on the sight of his daughter's face. Didn't want to imagine her doing that, not with anyone, but especially ... especially ....

Buffy put her lips to his ear again, speaking only to him. "Do I like this? Is it what I wished Jemmie would have? No. But Angel went out of his way for us. He did all he could to help when you came to him with Johnny. He cares for all of us—he's a friend. We can't treat him like this. Not anymore."

Again she pulled back enough to look at him, and he was reminded how Jemima came by her will-bending stare.

"Anyway," Buffy said aloud, "You know we're all in this mission together. There's few enough of us, we don't need to split into factions."

She'd learned already to take his passionate declaration about the mission and turn it to her purposes! It was the argument that could make him bend the knee without protest, though it still roiled his heart.

"Bugger."

Buffy led him across the room again.

Meeting Angel's gaze, Spike let the demon surface in his eyes—not all the way, but just enough.

"You do her wrong—hurt her—disappoint her—make her cry—an' so help me, your last sight on this plane will be my blade loppin' your head right off your shoulders. Don't imagine I won't do it, mate, 'cause you know me well enough by now. Nuff said."

Angel raised his chin. "Nuff said."

"Oh, that's just great," Buffy said. "Now shake hands and let's have something to eat."

Angel felt he was sitting on the edge of his chair even though he wasn't. The whole house smelled like Buffy, much the way the old place on Revello used to. He'd never been remotely at home there, in the too short time he'd been Buffy's lover. Joyce had never welcomed him in through the front door, never sat him down for a meal. He'd spent a night in Buffy's room at the beginning, but had never lain with her in her bed. In all the years since he'd left her, he'd never imagined returning, even as a visitor, to her home, let alone as a sort of in-law.

All this came back to Angel in a confused muddle of sadness and unease as he sat in the kitchen, watching Buffy cook breakfast. Her happiness, though, was apparent, startlingly so, given all she had to mourn. The hoped-for reconciliation with Spike was clearly a fact: she gave off an intense musk of sex that betrayed how they'd been going at it all night. He could smell the bite on her neck too, the distinctive aroma of her blood stirring up troubling, shame-shot memories.

He wasn't ready for this direct confrontation with the evidence that, for Spike and Buffy, feeding and fucking were happily intertwined. Buffy clearly relished everything about him, right down to the demon's most basic appetites.

The silk scarf that bound Buffy's throat seemed just as obvious a flaunting of that relish as showing off a frank bandage, or the bite itself. It struck his conservative Irish soul as a bit of obscenity he'd gladly have spared Jemima.

Buffy served bacon and eggs out onto plates. She brought them to the table and set them down—one, two, three. Spike, already sipping warm blood from a large mug, set a smaller mug of the same in front of Angel.

"I don't get eggs?"

"Since when do you eat?"

"I ... "

"He eats now," Jemima said. "When I cook for him."

"Well well," Spike said, smirking over the rim of his cup. "How the mighty have fallen. I remember the time it was all We don't waste time on what feeds the humans, boy. The humans feed us."

"Papa."

Spike dropped a kiss on Jemima's head, then slid into his chair. "Love it when she calls me that."

Buffy, sitting down before her own plate, made no sign of an inclination to restrain Spike's teasing. There was to be, Angel saw, a certain period of unavoidable hazing. He made up his mind to endure it with patience. Considering that it would've been quite easy—and even correct, in some lights—for Spike and Buffy to blame him for Johnny's ultimate failure, and the violence it caused—they seemed to have made up their minds that that at least wasn't to come between them.

"You can share mine," Jemima said, inclining towards him. She'd already pulled her chair around so she was sitting beside him at the square table, rather than at an angle. "There's too much here for just me."

"No, you eat. I'll watch you."

"It's good as a feast, isn't it—watchin' 'em eat? Mouths all shiny, an' eyes bright." Spike's remark startled him. In a moment his tone had utterly changed; suddenly he'd taken Angel as his partner in the pleasure of observing the human beloved. His eyes were all for Buffy, a gaze of such pure adoration that it was amazing she didn't disintegrate in the heat of it. "Ah, look at her. Eatin' for two, she is now, pretty darling."

"But very daintily," Buffy insisted, even as she reached for more toast. "Not with, you know, any gorging about it."

"Never, Pet."

Jemima was all smiles. All her worries about her parents were evaporated. Angel thought he could glimpse in her current expression a hint of what she'd been as a little child, entirely unguarded.

"I can't believe I'm going to have another sibling," she said now. "It's really wonderful."

"Sister."

"But how can you know that, Papa?"

"Your father is privy to all kinds of secrets," Buffy said.

"And she'll be born soon after Auntie Dawn's. Won't it be fun to have babies in the family? I wish you would come and live near us while the kids are small. The cousins should have each other."

"Maybe we will," Buffy said, piling egg onto her toast. "We haven't thought that far ahead."

Angel wondered about what she'd said before, while the others weren't listening. When it isn't oh shit get me out of this, or, more to the point, oh shit, get this out of me. That ambivalence was nowhere in evidence at the moment. She was blushing under Spike's looks and her daughter's smiles. Her arousal scented the air, a salty second to the aroma of bacon; Angel couldn't help being aware of it, and aware that Spike knew it; the smug glance his host occasionally threw at him spoke that much.

In all the years since Dru dragged him home, a curly-pated prat she'd no business to turn, Angel never had imagined it would be bloody Will who'd come up roses.

Beneath the table, Jemima squeezed his hand.

At the conclusion of the meal, something happened as Spike and Buffy cleared the table, some little bit of business around stacking the dishwasher, nearly inaudible, except that Buffy laughed, a high girlish helpless laugh.

"Excuse us, we need to ... I have to change, and I need Spike to—zip me."

"Zip you, yeah," Spike grinned. In the next moment, they were gone, the stairs thudding under their running steps, a door slamming above.

Angel glanced at Jemima. She shrugged.

"Don't imagine I'm not used to this. They've always been like that. I had my—what do you call it—primal moment—very young."

"I—"

She slipped out of her chair and onto his knee. Every time she did this, with that sweet confiding expression on her face, his chest swelled as if his heart would break out into beats in the next moment. "You look all thunder-stormy. It's all right, sweetheart. Thanks for coming here even though you didn't want to. We don't have to stay. I've got what I wanted."

"You're visiting with them—you shouldn't go so soon."

"We can get a hotel room in town for a few days, if you want. Or we can just go home."

"Is it home?"

She looked as if he'd said something very silly that she was nevertheless going to indulge. "America is home." She kissed him. An indeterminate period of time elapsed, during which Angel saw no further than the blur of Jemima's face filling his vision as he tasted her mouth over and over. A couple of times, when she pressed her hand against the bulge in his trousers, he shifted it away. His excitement wasn't all for her.

"Hello young lovers."

Buffy was, unexpectedly and too quickly, so it seemed to him, back in the kitchen. Jemima sprang up with a laugh.

Buffy had indeed changed—into a dress that zipped up the back. She'd also washed, which only added a scent of soap to her predominant essence of cornucopia: Spike had fucked her again, and again made the blood flow from her neck. This time, clearly, it was as much a boast for his benefit as anything else. Buffy must've known it too, but he couldn't somehow bring himself to blame her, even as she nearly overwhelmed his senses with rich aromas of sustenance and satisfaction. He couldn't help but remember that he'd tasted of all that himself, just enough to know what it was he really lost when he had to give her up.

"We were just talking—" Jemima started.

"Were you?" Buffy raised an eyebrow, smiled at her daughter with a generosity Angel had to admire. On the point of Jemima's choice, she really had capitulated, and all the way. "Funny way to go about it." She winked.

Jem blushed. "About whether I'd go stay with Angel at the hotel, or if we should go—"

"Jemmie, don't leave yet. You just got here." She came and took her hand. "Now things are better, I wanted—"

"I don't want to go." She glanced at Angel. "We'll stay in Reykjavik for a few days."

"But stay here. There's plenty of room." Her hopeful glance included him. "Angel, really. You're welcome here. Spike would say the same. Our guest room's very comfortable."

He wasn't sure he could stand it. He wanted to make love to Jemima—the few days she'd been away already felt like a desert of time—but the idea of doing that under this roof was a wilting one. On a number of fronts. The blood-scent that laced the air stood in for all the strangeness of it.

"Why don't you show him the room," Buffy said. "Tell him about it. About how quiet it is."

Blushing again, Jem took his hand, tugged him up. "We can take a look, anyway, but I think—"

It was a relief to be led away from the kitchen. The stress of all this would've been great enough if any of the componant parts—the boy's misadventures—the affair with Spike—the erotic clash of the Titans—was absent. Taken all together, this visit was exhausting. Even used as he was to living among people—to having a team—this new venture into love and family reminded him how very rusty he was at human relations. How solitary was his default mode.

He wasn't like Spike, who had the gift of easy affection—giving it, getting it. When he tried not to be solitary, bad things usually ensued.

The bedroom she led him to was a wing off the main part of the house, remote from Spike and Buffy's aerie. Two walls were of window, reflecting the room now because it was dark outside. The unmade bed smelled of Jemima's sleep and little else. She sat at the foot, a faint smile on her face. "I know they can be too much. But then I think you've been too much too, in your day, so you can make allowances." He couldn't deny this; the remark sent his mind spinning back into places he didn't want to associate with her. That was maybe the worst of it, how the promiximity to Buffy and Spike in their state of fecund honeymoon stirred up his whole ugly past, reminding him of what he'd been and could too easily be again.

She stretched her booted legs apart, drew up the hem of her gathered woollen skirt. In the windows, two other Jemimas did the same, looking as if they were each alone, preparing to remember some absent lover in an act of self-pleasure. "Angel, I want you."

In this room at least, there was nothing but her. No longer drowned out by the larger presences of her parents, he found her delicate aromas again. He knelt between her knees on the Persian carpet. She caught his mouth with hers, her little fingers caressing his face, twining in his hair. Her chunky sweater made her seem bigger than she was; threading his arms around her reacquainted him with her slipping slenderness. She sighed into the kiss when he embraced her, parting her legs further. She was breathing fast. "Here—please—" She pulled the skirt up higher. The woolly tights she wore turned out to be stockings. Her uncovered sex gave forth its perfume; she leaned back in his arms. "Kiss me here—"

She mewed and gasped as he licked her, sometimes scrubbing at her face and hair, sometimes stretching her arms all the way up, arching her back. Sometimes a real word or two escaped her in the midst of her kittenish vocalizing: once she cried out her love, then a minute later said, do you have your cock out? Is it hard? When she came she lay splayed and panting, showing herself off. The deep pink mouth of her quim twitched, an invitation he didn't resist for long. She was so small, yet she took him in with such joyful ease, wrapping her legs around his flanks.

"Yes. Yes."

Jemima's voice could be sometimes, in pitch and tone, just like her mother's. Her mother, who, within the hour, had given herself to Spike just this way, and in the midst of it, he'd tasted her. Her blood—made more delicious with her excitement—welling up between his fangs, filling his mouth, hot, powerful, love made liquid.

Afterwards Jemima rose reluctantly and went to the bathroom. Spent, Angel lay in her warmth, thinking what now? If he remained with them for the next few days, what would they all do and say? He couldn't imagine any sort of conversation with Spike, not anymore. And how could he be with Buffy in a way that wouldn't be endlessly awkward?

His thoughts reverted to the scarf she'd worn that morning, to the bite it concealed.

The blood thing. The blood thing was just too much.

Spike had boasted how he drank Buffy's monthly blood, and thereby implanted indelible images in Angel's mind, images that followed him into his affair with Jemima, nagging and tormenting like the temptations of St Anthony.

After they'd been sharing a bed for a couple of weeks, he'd sprung from sleep one early morning achingly hard and fangy, made so by the rich aroma of bleeding. She was still in deep sleep, oblivious to the beginning of her period, just beginning to seep out.

That morning he'd lain in the dark, listening to her quiet breathing, trying not to inhale the tantalizing spice of her, wrestling with himself, for ten minutes that felt like ten hours, while Spike's words replayed through his head nothin' in this unlife's sweeter than sippin' the stuff straight from her little cooze. He'd never been tempted like this by any of the human friends he'd made in LA—but then none of those women slept naked with him, cherished in his arms. Never never had he had what Jemima gave him—such unrestrained warmth, such tactful trust. In succumbing to her, he'd promised himself—promised the whole universe—that he'd protect her, and above all from himself. That morning he fled the room—afraid not that he'd hurt her, but that he desired what he shouldn't even dare think of.

Later that day something came up that took him away from her for the duration. He pushed the problem to the back of his mind for a month. But the next time it came around there was no convenient job to remove him from the Hyperion. He couldn't bring himself to say a word about it—shame and confusion stoppered him. Jemima's blood, in any form, was a thing he simply should not want. He mustn't impose his demonic desires on her. If he once tasted her, nothing between them would be the same. Nothing would be as it should be. Anyway, she'd never agree to it, even if he were to insult her by ... no, he couldn't even fantasize about asking. She wasn't like her mother, and he, above all, wasn't Spike.

For those four nights he found—or invented—work that kept him from going to bed when she did. During the day he kept his distance as best he could without making it too obvious. All the while he berated himself for making so much of this—after all, Buffy hadn't troubled him so in the old days—not this way, anyhow. It was Spike's fault. If Spike hadn't spoken to him ....

As those days passed Jemima grew hesitant, as if afraid to offend him further. The unarticulated tension built up. At the point when it seemed she was working herself up to a question about the cause of his coolness, Jemima had a vision that distracted them both so that the matter was forgotten until it was over with. She accepted him back in their bed as if all was well, only remarking as they lay twined in the afterglow, "You are a moody man. Milo was too, but the difference is that I like you. Still ... it seems that's who I attract. I wonder why."

He'd apologized and told her it wasn't her fault, and there the matter rested for another month.

It wasn't going to rest, though. That was the trouble.

"You and Angel are going to be nice to each other, now. The way you were in LA, while you were ... you know ... sleeping together."

"Are we, Pudding?" Spike turned, apparently unsurprised at her suddenly coming upon him on his solitary walk on the frozen tundra. There was a bit of a moon, but she brought a small flashlight to help her see over the uneven hummocks. In its light she saw that his expression was as good-humored as his tone. She dialed her own determination back a notch.

"Yes, you are."

"He sent you out here to tell me?"

"No, he did not. I'm here on my own."

"Well, you're a good girl." He reached for her free hand, tucking it into the crook of his arm as he resumed his stroll. The wind made her eyes water, but she was determined to say her piece before she went back to the house.

"Papa, that was quite a show you and Mamma put on."

"Didn't mean it for a show. Didn't know he was gonna be here when we came down this morning."

"I don't mean that. I mean—everything afterwards."

"What—slippin' off upstairs after brekkie? Your mum an' me have some catching up to do. Thought that us being together again would please you, anyhow."

"It does! It—yes, I'm so happy—relieved—"

"Makes two of us."

He was, in his good humor, still determined to tease. She made her voice stern. "You're deliberately not understanding me, Papa."

"What am I not understanding?"

"We both know you're trying to scandalize him. It isn't kind. For one thing, I think he still has some feelings for Mamma, and it's hard for him, to see ..."

"Scandalize him? This's Angelus we're talking about here! Fellow never met a debauch he couldn't do one better than."

"No, it's not," she said patiently. "Angel is very ... he can be very proper. Prim, even. Irish Catholic, you know, without being actually so Catholic, which—"

"Which thank God for small favors."

"Well, yes. But the point is, I feel he's uncomfortable with—it's hard for him to see—" She struggled to say what she'd prepared. Back in the house, making up her mind to intervene before things got worse, it all seemed very straightforward. She'd imagined herself speaking without hesitation. When she brought it out she could only manage a whisper. "... that you bit her."

"Again—didn't do it on account of him."

"Not at first, Papa, I know. Only ...."

Spike paused then, turned to look into her face. "Petal, I'm sorry my earthiness embarrassed you. 'Spect I forget myself too much when you're around. Usually your mum throttles me back, but she's a bit tipsy on it herself just now." He broke into a wide, spontaneous smile. "She loves me again. 'Fraid we can't quite help ourselves."

"I'm not ... really not embarrassed. I'm used to you two by now!" Even as she spoke, her face went hot in the cold breeze. "But Angel isn't, and I wish—listen, Papa, I'm very glad that you've made your peace with my choice. I didn't say that yet, and I want you to know. But I feel it disturbs him, to know that you—that you do things with Mamma he can't do." Bringing this out was much more difficult than she'd anticipated. Having said it, she wanted to run.

Spike bent then to look into her eyes. "You really happy with him, Biscuit? I mean—don't mind me askin', though I shouldn't—you really happy in all the ways—you know?"

"Oh Papa, yes. But Angel ... he's not so free and easy with me as you are with Mamma. He thinks he can't be, for one thing, but ... it's not only his concern about his soul. He kind of ... puts me on a pedestal, you know."

"Ah?"

"I don't want to say too much. I just want you to be more thoughtful, if you can, while we're here. We won't stay long."

"All right, my girl, I'll do my best."

"And one other thing, Papa. Please don't let this—me with Angel—keep you from being his friend. I think you were starting to be before, and then ...."

"He say anything to you about that?"

"No. There are still a lot of things he doesn't talk to me about, but I watch him, and I know ... I know things. I think he wishes you both didn't have to be at daggers drawn, and not just on my account, but because ... maybe he misses you."

Spike laughed, his eyebrows rising as if she was making fun.

"I mean it. It meant so much to him, that you came to him when we were in trouble."

"All right, petal." He pulled her into an embrace, shielding her from the blasting wind. "Christ, why'd you do it? World's full of men, an' you pick—"

"We are so good together."

"Well, if you think so. 'Course you're good to him, it's the other way 'round I'm not sold on."

"It'll all be fine. You'll see, Papa." She tugged him back towards the house. "Promise me one more thing."

"More? I'm already overcommitted, what with having to say I'll be friend to Himself."

"When my little sister comes ... promise me you won't give her all the pet names that are mine."

"What? I have to make up a whole round of new ones?"

"I don't think that's a lot to ask. I know she'll be your darling when she comes, and I'll just be the grown-up one."

"Now you're fishin' when your belly's already full."

"Well, yes. But promise me—I'll share your love but I'm not sharing my names."

"An' here I thought your mum was the big slavedriver. All right, all right. I promise, Biscuit."

"Are we alone?"

"I think so. If you're going to ravish me, better do it now."

"I— no."

"Well, of course no." Even as she said this, Buffy realized that her mood and Angel's were at cross-purposes. He filled the wide living room doorway like some allegorical figure of portent, or possibly the Incredible Hulk. "Come sit down. Do you want a drink?" She rose from the sofa where she'd been flicking through a fresh pile of fashion magazines, ready to go to the cart where the bottles and glasses lived, or if not there, to veer over to the fireplace, where she could poke at things while he chose a seat.

"Buffy, I wanted to tell you how really sorry I am about your son."

"I know, Angel. You said so at the funeral. You don't have to—"

He stared at his knees, his expression reminding her of how he'd so often been in those months after he came back from hell: bemused, almost lost. "I do, though. He might have made it if I'd worked harder at him."

"Oh." She blinked, the previously serene Scandanavian indoor air all around her suddenly warping and boiling like a heat mirage on a highway. I'm not ready for this. I may never be ready for this.

"I let myself be distracted."

Buffy thought of him for a moment—an image of her adorable, affectionate boy, composed of poses in snapshots and the firm morter of motherlove—then let him go. Johnny was gone, beyond recall. Angel was here. She could only do what she could do. "I don't think what happened is your fault. Spike doesn't either."

"I didn't win his respect."

"I think he was beyond respecting anyone or anything." She sighed. "Angel ... I can't have this conversation now. I wish I could comfort you—I wish you didn't feel responsible. But I just can't."

At first his stare was entirely incomprehending. Then he got it, his blankness giving way to self-rebuke. He started to his feet. "I should go."

"No—no—sit. Just ... talk about something else." She cocked her head, regarded him. Suddenly she had a strong gust of memory—how he'd first appeared to her, dark and mysterious and maybe dangerous—in that Sunnydale alley. She'd disliked him instantly, even as her curiosity bucked up like a cat's arched back. No idea of what was to come from him. How entwined they'd be. "Do you like my house?"

He glanced up at the high ceiling of the room. "It's nice."

"Well. Sometimes I forget how expressive you can be. And my daughter—is she nice too?"

"Buffy, she—" This time Buffy heard in his stymied silence all he thought and couldn't say.

"Funny how things work out." Now she wanted a drink, and couldn't have one. She recalled why with a little start. The motherlove thing didn't yet extend to the promised child. Right now she was completely focused on Spike. The pregnancy was more about him—his need, his apotheosis, almost—than it was about looking forward to a new little person in her life. She would fall in love later, when the child was in her arms. That was how it went with her before.

"Funny, yeah."

His voice startled her; for a moment she'd forgotten him. "I know you didn't want to come here. But you were brave."

"She—"

"It takes bravery to be part of my family, Angel." She rose, laying a hand on his shoulder as she passed towards the door. "So welcome to it."

Jemima thought that some effort might now be made to make the visit more visit-y, but in fact her parents disappeared upstairs soon after she came in from her talk with Spike. Instead of an evening spent as a foursome, she went out swimming alone with Angel, and afterwards to a movie that turned out to be dubbed into Icelandic, with English subtitles. They sat in the back row and kissed through most of it, the frequent explosions flashing in her peripheral vision as she made love to his tongue.

Back in the guest room, getting ready for bed, Jemima watched Angel out of the corners of her eyes. A little while ago she'd read an email from Rita, her closest confidant at home and proving to be a good correspondent now they were apart. Is it weird? Rita wanted to know, a question which Jemima read as one she could feel free to answer a little, or a lot, or not at all. Of course it was all kinds of weird. Even unanticipated weirdnesses were popping up like points of interest on a scenic roadway.

"We can go back to LA anytime you say." She brushed her hair at the dressing table. A hundred strokes. Often Angel liked to do it for her, but he made no move from where he was sitting heavily on the side of the bed.

"There's no rush. At least, unless you get a vision."

"Did you have a nice talk with my mother?"

"We ... we talked."

"I was afraid that they really might split up, but that danger's past."

"Yeah."

"And the news about the baby—I'm sure they'd have gotten back together without it, but—what a blessing that is. What a hopeful sign."

"Yeah."

"What did you two say to each other? Am I allowed to know?"

"Just ... nothing really. I—"

She went to him, sat down at his side, nuzzled against his satiny shoulder. "Never mind, I shouldn't have asked. Private talk."

She hadn't realized, until she said it to her father, that there was so much she and Angel didn't speak about. She would've said, before, that they talked all the time. But now she paused to consider, most of their conversation had to do with work, or with mundanities like what she was going to eat for supper or whether there was anything good at the drive-in. Or it consisted of flirting, which gave bone-deep satisfaction but was not ... not what you'd call content-rich. In bed after the sex that the flirting led to, they settled burning questions, such as how many freckles do you have on the bridge of your lovely nose?, or just how sexy IS this tattoo on your shoulderblade?, or else they didn't talk at all. She'd taken pleasure in the ease of their silences—they so contrasted with the dire silences of her marriage—but now she wondered, was this all there would ever be?

There were a lot of things Angel didn't want her to know (many of which she already knew, in a dry sort of way, via the Council's records), whole regions of himself he didn't like to dwell on, let alone share. She could respect that—she had no particular yen for hearing first-person narratives of what Papa called 'debauchery'. But Angel had been quite a while on the side of good even at the time she was born—which gave him just as much experience of being a person to look back upon as she had. Surely some of that could come into conversational play? Surely there were things he'd like to tell her, if she could just get him started.

Not to mention all the sticky bits she sensed, the places where Angel's sense of propriety and caution rubbed too hard against his instinct for joy. She suspected he could be getting a lot more pleasance out of their affair than he was, and still stay well on the right side of the line.

He pulled her onto his lap. Looked at her in a way that went well beyond words. "You know what you mean to me, don't you? You know what a difference you've made to—"

She nodded. Just last week, she'd overhead him singing in the shower. Amazing Grace.
<

"Girl's asleep?"

"And yours?" Angel stepped hesitantly into the living room. With the moonlight striking off the snow outside, it was quite bright here, even with all the lights off. Spike sat in the armchair nearest the window, a heavy crystal glass in one hand, the decanter of scotch on the floor at his feet. Angel wondered why he was awake and drinking when all was so well. He ought to be wrapped around Buffy, sleeping the sleep of the well-fed, well-laid vampire.

"She sleeps," Spike said, the smug note coming back into his voice, "like the little engine that could. Chuggin' away at making us a new little bit. Sweetest thing in the world, it is."

"And I thought I had that in my safe-keeping."

Spike looked up at him as he drew nearer. "Don't try to be charming, Peaches, you don't pull it off. Glasses're in that cabinet over there."

Angel fetched one, and after a moment's deliberation at the room's seating possibilities, folded himself Indian fashion on the rug at Spike's feet. Might as well give him the satisfaction of looking down on him for once. Angel was sensible of Spike's difficulties with all this—more, he thought, than Spike could bring himself to acknowledge.

Angel sipped at his drink, looked out at the silver tundra stretching away towards the line of mountains in the distance.

"A lot's happened to you in a short time," Spike said after a while. "Who'd credit it?"

"Change attends death."

"So it does." He stared into his glass. "When Buffy died ... that's what changed me. Not fallin' for her so much as losin' her. Not that I had her, mind you, not then. But had the sight of her, which I lived for, in those days. Only bright thing in my black heart. Then she was gone, but she left me with a task. Clung to that, and it was what changed me."

"Love."

"Love, yeah. Can kill or cure."

"Spike. I'm grateful to you—"

"Eh?" He sat forward, sharp, peremptory. His eyes glittered. It was almost as if he didn't want to hear it.

"For what you gave me. I don't just mean the bed stuff. And I don't just mean Jemima. She's everything. But without you, your ... influence ... I wouldn't have had the courage ... I know you never meant me to look for someone so close to you. But you know—who could know better—you know how these things go."

"I do." It came out on a growl.

"I don't know how long I can make her happy. I don't know if I can really give her what she—well, I know I can't. Not what you've somehow managed to give to Buffy, the things that ... the human things. But I swear to you I won't hurt her, and if she decides, after a while ... if she decides to move on, I'll let her go like a gentleman. You have my word."

"Fucking hell." Spike kicked him, but not hard. He was barefoot. Angel decided to just take it in good part. "An' what if she doesn't regain her common sense? What if she stays? She's not immortal. She's going to age like any girl, unless some nasty puts an end to her first. Don't quite feature you bein' attentive lover to an old lady."

"And if Buffy aged, you'd discard her?"

"Talkin' 'bout you here."

"I couldn't bear to miss a minute of Jemima."

"Should've thought you'd feel the same 'bout Buffy. Walked away from her."

This roused a little resentment. "You know it's not the same thing. The way things were then. I was still a boy in those days. I couldn't be good for her then, even if I could've kept my soul in her bed. It's all different now."

Spike grinned suddenly. "Oh, what a funny one you are, Angelus. What a funny one you always were."

Angel wasn't used to talking this way to anyone, least of all to Spike. But he found that it didn't hurt him much. He leaned back on an elbow, took another drink.

After a while, Spike spoke again. "Don't want her to miss out on bein' a mother, if she wants to. I think she wants to."

"I'd like that," Angel said.

"Your son. You think about him?"

"All the time."

"Visit his grave? Has he got a grave?"

"No. He's still alive. But he doesn't know me. He has another life."

"You gave him away? I thought—"

"Another reality. He got a new reality, and I got—I got his safety. Assurance of his safety. But I don't get to see him, or know him."

Spike stared into his glass. "I didn't know. That's hard."

"Hey—what's up?"

Buffy appeared in the doorway, almost wraithlike with her unbound hair, her long white nightgown. She paused there for a moment, then at some faint signal perhaps from Spike, sailed into the room. In the reflected silver light from outside, Angel could see all her shape through the gown, just as he could smell, once more, that tantalizing perfume of sex and blood and Buffy-warmth that so stirred and disturbed him.

"Guess this is the vampire happy hour," she said. "Three in the morning."

"Pretty much. Come sit." Spike rose to give her his place, joining Angel on the floor. He leaned against her legs in a fond, proprietary way, laying a hand over one of her bare feet.

He'd been made welcome, Angel realized, far more fully than he'd ever anticipated this early in the game. Even so, his impulse upon Buffy's appearance was to remove himself from the scene. What were they all now to each other? In-laws? Friends? (You'll never be friends.) Buffy curled her fingers into Spike's ruffled hair. Angel was on the verge of rising when he realized that her gaze was fixed on him, an intent look, nearly sharp, like a queen gazing from her throne.

"So here we are," she said. "The night creatures. The hybrids. The ones who don't—"

"We change, pet," Spike said, reassuring. "Even we change."

Suddenly an image popped into Angel's mind, pulled from a space opera movie he'd watched after Jemima left him on his own. Might they find themselves together like this again—or still—three hundred years from now, or four, pursuing the mission perhaps on another planet, or between them? Fighting demons in zero G? Making history in a way while skating along on its surface. Touching it though it couldn't touch them. Jemima would be gone by then. He didn't like to think about that. She'd be so brave, and comely even in a space suit.

"I'm glad we can still be killed," Buffy said. This remark pulled Angel from his revery.

"I know what you mean." Spike patted her foot, as if to assure her but also sway her off the topic.

She leaned forward, her other hand darting out to touch Angel's hair as she touched Spike's. "We need one another," she said, her voice low, fervent, her gaze full of some idea that made her seem far off even as she appealed to him, to both of them. "We must love one another or die."

Her touch was like a flaming brand; Angel's skin crept to meet it, eyes locked with hers. He was lifted somehow by her gaze, by the connection that linked the three of them, in and outside of time.

"Ah, my girl, my girl." Giving her leg a light slap, Spike started to rise. "Deadly with whatever she gets hold of—stake, sword, or poor defenceless tag of bloody overworked poetry."

The moment was over—and not a bit too soon. Feeling a bit sheepish, Angel rose too, and went back to the guest room.

As if all his disturbance that day evoked it, Angel walked in to the scent of blood lacing the air. The sweet-salty fragrance mixed with the bready warmth of Jemima's sleep, the marine undercurrent of their lovemaking, and her flowery perfume, whose round bottle sat on the dressing table, glinting in the moonlight.

He hovered in the doorway, his first instinct to withdraw.

Jemima sat up. Not at all startled, apparently, to see him there, she smiled. "Sweetheart." She looked lovely on awakening, the way a child does, fresh and sunny and guileless. She'd never known a moment's guile, Angel thought, in her thirty years. Her every desire was pure, just because it was hers.

Before he knew he was speaking, Angel said, "Jemmie, I think about you."

"And I think about you. Come cuddle me."

"No, I mean, I think about—I think of wanting—" He glanced over his shoulder, as if he expected to see Spike hovering at the end of the hall, yellow eyes flashing, that axe in hand. Shame ran through him, outlining the demon within in a corrosive green that burned like acid.

She was blushing now, he could feel the heat coming off her. Already he'd gone too far, when he hadn't meant to embark on this at all. It was obscene and impossible. He stepped back, mind racing.

"Sweetheart, come in and shut the door."

She didn't know what he was saying. He wondered what she thought this was. He liked it when she was imperious. She was so petite.

Without quite meaning to, he obeyed.

"I've been waiting for you to bring this up," she said. "I wasn't sure you would."

Angel waited, amidst a rising sense of horror.

"Can you say it? Can you say to me what it is you think about?"

Angel leaned on the door. What the hell was she doing?

"Because I think you should say it first. Not me. If it's what you really want."

"I—I don't. Let's stop this. Never mind. We should go back to sleep." Even as he backpedaled, he was faced again with what he was so reluctant to do—stay here with her in the midst of that heady aroma, as if it was nothing. Saying nothing, because nothing was all that could be said. He loved her. She trusted him. Awakened from her deepest slumber, she almost certainly didn't realize she'd begun to bleed.

"What are you trying to protect me from really?"

This was too much. He hung his head, captured for the moment by the onslaught of memory her question stirred. How could she ask it? How? She knew what vampires were. She knew what he was.

Maybe this was a mistake. All his instincts against taking a human lover—all the reasons he'd told Spike—surely they were sound. He'd misjudged here. Jemima didn't know what she was saying. What was she evoking.

"Angel. I wish you would tell me." She was getting out of bed now.

He couldn't believe his own fright—the elephant cowering at the mouse.

"Jem."

She paused, hovering by the foot of the bed.

"I can't ask you. I can't tell you. It's wrong." If he were to taste her, what might happen? Would it rouse a desire, ungovernable even by his soul, to take her utterly? Mental images blossomed that made him blink.

"Oh, Angel." Her voice was soft. Infinitely tender. "I'm going to bleed every month for ... for the next twenty years at least. And you're not going to pretend all that time that ... that it doesn't stir your desire?"

A gasp escaped him. He put a hand over his mouth, whether to prevent another such frank response, or to quell the itch of the demon, wanting to rise at the mere suggestion, he wasn't sure.

She stepped closer. "Did you really think I didn't realize?" She reached him now, gently plucked his hand down, seized them both in hers. "Angel, I don't want you to bite me. I'm sorry, that would be ... it would be too frightening for me. And I don't believe you want to, either, not really."

He exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"But when I bleed ..." Her blush, sudden, furious, cut her off. She radiated fever, her breath short and quick. In a single moment she'd become almost unbearably excited. Angel felt it in the heat of her hands, gone moist, and in her smell. "I ... you know I like it when ... oh, I'm so stupid, the things I'm too shy to say!" She shook her head, and laughed once, and blushed again. Then she sprang back, jerking him with her. "Do it, I want you to, I want you to so much." In a moment she was lying back, nightgown discarded, legs wide, her eyes glassy with need, her lip caught in her teeth telegraphing her insecurity, fear that he would reject her. The sight and savor of her open cunny, flushed with excitement, filled his senses as if it was a flower he'd pressed to his face. Angel sank to his knees and matched deed to image. Jemima cried out when he touched her, a cry like triumph, and jerked her hips up to meet him.

The first taste—rich, exquisite—of her womb-blood, brought the demon clamoring to the surface. He fought it down, even as he delved in deeper, sealing his mouth over her sex, furling his tongue inside her. Jemima sobbed, rolling up against him as if they were fucking. He touched her feet, doubled under her, found her toes curled in tight. His own body was caught in a powerful trembling; he braced himself against the bed.

The blood, as if drawn by his sucking and her exertion, flowed freer, deliciously mixed with the nectar of her spendings. He wasn't sure how much time went by, or how times she came with desperate mewing cries, tensing and thrashing. Her cunny fluttered around his tongue. After a while, she almost stopped moving, her sounds reduced to sighs and whispered praises. He was tremendously moved, at her pleasure, her complete relaxation, undefended, unashamed, unafraid. He didn't know when the demon overcame him, rising in bumps and ridges. It was only when he raised his head, sated, and met her eyes, which widened, that he realized he'd fanged out.

Angel hastened to shake off the game-face.

Jemima reached a hand towards him. "Don't. You don't have to."

Thinking of her brother, the ordeal she'd suffered at his hands, the shame returned. "You shouldn't have to see that."

"No, it's your desire for me. Don't hide it. It would be like hiding your erection."

"It's not the same." He had an erection, aching unattended all this time.

"I know how it isn't. But between us, right here, it can be, can't it? It can be whatever we agree to. It's a handsome face, did you know that? Leonine and beautiful. Have you ever seen it?"

What questions she could ask!

"Photographs, yes."

"Of course. I should have realized."

"Jemima, it doesn't have to be—it shouldn't be—a part of what we are together."

"But it is. It's part of you, it's part of your beauty as well as your—your ugliness. The less you deny, Angel, the better it will be."

"There's such a thing as being too accepting."

"Let me be the judge of that. I liked this." Jemima laughed. "No—I loved it. The best head you've given me so far. The best I've had in my life. Don't tell me I don't get to have this again. To give you this again. You were so passionate. You lost yourself in it."

"That's just what I can't do, Jemmie. Lose myself. What if I—"

"Angel, if it ever happens again, it isn't going to be sensual pleasure, or even love, that makes you lose your soul. You're not the man you were that other time, no matter what you think. I'm still not worried."

"You should be. You—"

She half sat up, reaching for him. "I refuse. I believe in you. In us. Come lie with me. Take those off."

She watched him shuck his trousers with a smile that was girlish but far from innocent, reaching for his jutting cock as he stretched out beside her. "What would you like?" she said, playing with it, her small hands encircling him, one at the head, the other at the base. "A fuck, or—"

It was overwhelming, her acceptance of him. How matter of fact she could be about what should horrify her. But, having regaled himself with her blood, quaffing it like wine, the more severe urge he'd feared was absent. No need stirred him to tear at her neck. His love impulses, present from the first moment he'd set eyes on her—to protect her, to please her—were stronger than ever. A fresh bond—entirely unexpected—was set by their exchange; now demon as well as man was sworn to her.

"Let me see it go into you."

Smiling, her cheeks pink and mouth glossy, she moved across him, hands braced on his chest, wriggling her moist behind against his cock. "I'm not sure my muscles work anymore after that feast," she whispered, even as she got into the stance he asked for, crouched over him so he could see the red head of his cock nestling against her, then slowly swallowed as she lowered herself. Angel didn't think he'd ever get tired of the delight it gave him, watching her stretch to take his bulk, seeing how she liked it, her eyes shining, and the soft sounds she made, dirty words breathed out in a kitten whisper.

He thought of what Spike had said earlier, how he didn't feature him making love to an old woman. But he was wrong—Angel knew he'd make love to her as long as she wanted it, and if a time came that she didn't, or couldn't, he wouldn't care for her less. Spike, maybe, put too much emphasis on the physical. Angel wouldn't have dared this with Jemima, not for one moment, if he hadn't felt—felt every second—this strong attraction of spirit to spirit. This communion. Spike would understand that, if he told him about it. It must be the same as he shared with Buffy.

Jemima's age—her aging—wouldn't matter. He hoped only that she would age, that nothing would come to cut her short. He wanted all he could get. Knew he'd carry his eventual mourning of her, as he carried Wesley's, as a permanent stone in his heart. A stone that was yet a lightness, because of the wonder, the boon, of having had such a friend at all.

"God, look at us! I love it!" Dawn had been laughing all morning. She'd laughed nearly all day yesterday too, through the rehearsal and various last minute preparations. Now that she was dressed in her long white gown, cut low to show off the bounteous cleavage that came with pregnancy, and Buffy was in her matron of honor dress, she took in their reflections in the full length mirror with nearly hysterical hilarity. "We look like—like two soap bubbles! Big round soap bubbles with arms and legs." She wiggled her arms, and kicked out a leg, making the satin swirl. Her dress was just the sort of thing an ambitious twenty-year-old would've chosen, and gave almost no concession of style to the enormity of her abdomen.

"Maybe you do," Buffy said. "I look quite svelte. From the back you can't tell at all."

"Soap bubbles!" Dawn insisted, grabbing her into a sideways hug. To hug front-ways would've demanded they both bend over quite far. "Round and rounder! And with the boobies—we're like a knockers convention."

Buffy kissed her. "You look beautiful. The roly poly bride."

"And so do you. I almost forgive you for when the caterer thought I was your mother."

"I'm sorry about that."

"De nada! I'm happy, so it's nothing. Of course, I look forward to seeing you do your utmost doing the limbo dancing portion of the party."

"There's going to be limbo dancing?"

A knock sounded before Dawn could answer, and Jemima peeked around, her up-do garnished with fresh gardenias. "Are you ready, auntie? Do you need help with your veils or your flowers or your garters or anything?"

"Your mother has tricked me out, it's all good."

"I'm going to check on Spike a minute, then," Buffy said. "With the no reflection thing—"

"He and Angel were helping each other," Jemima said. "Uncle Xander and Willow too, of course."

Willow and Spike were splitting the Best Man duties, and in light of this, Willow was being an honorary man for the occasion, Drag King style, something she seemed to be enjoying just as much as Dawn was enjoying being a spherical bride.

Buffy crossed the upstairs hall. They were laughing behind the door of the opposite bedroom, which was ajar. Xander's tolerance of Angel's presence, especially on this day of days, showed off his innate graciousness. Or else showed that, like Dawn, he was so happy nothing could bring him down. She knocked. "Matron of honor here to inspect."

Spike opened the door.

Buffy blinked. She'd so seldom seen him in a suit. Their own wedding. Giles' funeral. A few other occasions. Rare as that was, this was rarer still. He'd never, in her presence, worn formal evening clothes before. Yet he carried them as if he'd been born in them. She glanced from him to the others, and it was the same—the four of them, even Willow—perhaps especially her—in their black tuxedos and white tie like the louche members of some glittering set.

"My God. You guys ...."

"Spoiled for choice, she is, as to which one she wants to tear it off first," Spike said, glancing at the others with a sly wink. "Look at her—positively gagging for it."

Xander and Willow laughed. Angel—poor thing—looked a little uncomfortable, and ran a finger round his immaculate collar.

Xander looked radiant—it was an attribute usually ascribed to brides, not grooms, but Buffy thought it, and said so, taking his hands and going up on tiptoe to kiss him.

"I never thought—"

"We never do. But you see—you were right that Dawnie had a crush on you."

"I was right—?"

"It wasn't Spike. It was you. I think it always was."

Xander colored, and grinned.

They were married in their house. Not a new house, but new to them, their first together, overlooking the ocean. The party was larger than Buffy expected—she'd never quite realized how full her sister's life, and even Xander's, had become. Of relatives on either side there weren't many, but colleagues and friends turned up in abundance. Herds of children ran through the rooms and out into the garden, lit by Japanese lanterns. The wedding ceremony was at seven. Toasts had been made, pictures taken, the first dance danced, when Dawn's water broke. At the hospital, the obstetric nurses said no mother had ever yet brought a team of birthing coaches in formal wear. The baby took its time in coming—they were there all night, before the end.

Xander was dazed, nearly cross-eyed, his face slack from hard smiling. "I didn't think it would be like this," he said, over and over, like a doll whose string had been pulled. His eyes followed the child wherever he was. "I didn't think it would be like this." He was nearly delirious. Spike was almost holding him up.

"He's wonderful," Buffy said, squeezing him. "I'm so happy for you both."

Dawn, subsiding into exhaustion, was heard to say this was something she never needed to do again.

A month after the debut of Giles Tiberius Harris, Buffy gave birth at home—a temporary home, a suite in the Hyperion, where they were staying while organizing a more permanent place in the vicinity, in order that the little cousins could be together often. This pregnancy, so different from her previous ones in its placid physical course, ended just as peacefully, without agony or hemorrhage. The baby came easily after a couple hours' firm pushing. Buffy wanted no more help or attendance than Spike. There was something nearly sacred to them in this private welcome of their serendipitious child. When she was free of Buffy's body, they, and not the new girl, cried. Spike sprawled beside them on the sweat-soaked sheets, to watch Buffy, red-faced and nearly sobbing, attach the newborn to her breast.

"She's ours, Spike," Buffy breathed. "She's ours ours ours. Oh I love you." She pressed a frantic kiss to his mouth before becoming entirely absorbed in the child, caressing her all over with gentle fingers, weeping without tears.

The first the other inmates of the hotel knew of it was when the new parents appeared in the lobby in the morning with the baby girl wrapped in a blanket.

"Here's a good thing," Spike announced to the startled gathering of Jemima, Angel, Rita and the others, standing around Buffy in a tight knot, trying to get a peek at the little face obscured by a pink wrapper. "Our number's increased in the night. Here's hope for the future, yeah?" He kissed Buffy's hair. "Our hope borne out."

"Let that be her name, then," Buffy said. "Hope." She looked up at the others, flushed with pride. "Jemmie—here's your sister."

Buffy and Jemima together took the infant out into the sunlit world to be properly weighed and measured and recorded. Spike stood in the shaded doorway of the Hyperion after they'd gone, looking out at the bright street, the passing traffic. He was already anxious for their return. Didn't like letting Buffy or the child out of his sight.

Angel came up and prodded him in the shoulder.

"Here."

"What's this?"

"Cigar."

"Huh. Pre-Castro. Where'd you dredge this up?"

"Know a fellow. Let's see you smoke that. I'll join you." He produced a second one; they stepped outside the door into the shade of the portico, and lit up. He gestured to Angel with the cigar, acknowledgement, thanks.

The day was getting warm. Hope's first day. Drawing on the aromatic smoke, Spike thought of how her hair would curl, the plumpness of her arms and legs. Thought of how fierce and intent Buffy looked a few hours ago, pushing her out. She'd squeezed his hand in a crushing grip while she labored, but she was happy, happy and excited, as if she was on her way home after being a long time gone.

He'd stayed with her all the way, and now they were here, all of them.

Home safe.