September 20, 2007 12:15 AM

"Spike, get off me." Buffy pushed back against her husband, hoping to make him roll over. "SPIKE. OFF. NOW."

Sniff. Snort. "Buffy. What?" He asked and then once again settled closer to her wrapping his arm around her, his hand protectively covered her lower stomach where his child slept.

"Spike, so help me, if you don’t get off…NOW!"

Buffy flipped onto her back and pushed hard against Spike's chest.

"Damn it," Spike muttered as his eyes flew open from being pulled from the sleep he had finally achieved.

"Over there," Buffy pointed to the other side of the bed. "I’m burning up and you’re all hot and sweaty."

He glared at her for a moment before moving across the bed settling on his stomach where he could still watch her. Being pregnant had been a roller coaster ride for Buffy. Adjusting to hormones she didn't even realize she had. A Slayer's body as far as they knew had never carried life before and it was creating conflicting signals in her natural desire to fight and the woman side of her that wanted to nest. And, unfortunately for Spike, was making Buffy extremely mood.

"Argh, can the air conditioner go any lower before I spontaneously combust?" Buffy complained as she kicked the covers off. Even in her naked state, liberated from the covers, Buffy was still frustrated. "Don't get any ideas." She could feel Spike eyeing her nudity with wakeful interest. It had been days since they had had sex because hot flashes continually wracked her body and the last thing she wanted was to create any more heat.

"Kitten, the thermostat is set at 65 degrees. I had to put an extra blanket on Elijah so he wouldn't freeze."

"Kitten? I am not having a litter."

Spike intelligently kept his mouth shut, not wanting to make matters worse. He was jarred from his thoughts as she suddenly turned her head towards him with a gleam in her eyes that made him shift a little further away from her.

"Do you know what would make me feel better?"

He eyed her warily. The last scheme she had come up with was filling the bathtub up with ice water and that, of course, had not turned out well.

"Ice cream. Go get me some. Please. We're out. I finished all we had this afternoon."

"No."

"Please. I would for you and our baby."

“Yeah, and it was only two hours ago that you woke me up and sent me out for jelly doughnuts. And now I am trying to sleep in the crumbs of that particular midnight snack.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, knowing that she was irritating him although he rarely showed it.

That moved him more than the whining ever could; Spike sighed and got out of bed, reaching for the jeans he had pulled off only a short time ago.

“You don’t have to go.”

He leaned one knee on the bed so he could kiss her. She accepted his kiss and returned it with a fervor she hadn’t shown in a while.

“I’ll go. I want you to be happy and the little one.”

“Stay,” she murmured after pulling him down to her.

His eyes opened in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“I’m on top.” She commanded giggling at his hopeful expression.

“You won’t hear any complaints from me,” he growled as his eyes wandered over her naked body.

Her hands moved over him as she rolled over and straddled him. “It’s been too long,” she told him as she sucked his nipple into her mouth. There was a quick nibble before moving further down to lap at his belly button.

“Can I touch you?” He asked then groaned in anticipation as she undid his pants. Her head popped up with a smile lighting up her face.

“Nope, just lie back and enjoy it.”

He didn’t need to know that from her position on top of him the air conditioner was blissfully blowing on her finally giving her some relief from the heat of her body. Plus she was still adjusting to how warm he was to touch. She was always going to miss the coolness of his body that he had before because it had felt good when he covered her overheated skin and now the two of them together were creating too much heat for her hormonal body.

Just as her hands were beginning to tug his pants from him there was a knock on the door.

“Mum, Dad, you still awake?” Raven called.

“Shit,” Spike muttered.

Buffy only giggled as she reached for her night shirt that had been discarded earlier and pulled it over her head. “Just a second,” she called as she slid back under the covers then after making sure that Spike was covered she told Raven to come in.

Raven peeked her head around the door before stepping into the room.

“Hey, sorry if I was interrupting anything,” Raven said with a big grin

“It’s okay, I am going to die being horny,” Spike muttered.

“Spike, don’t say things like that in front of her,” Buffy swatted him with the back of her hand.

“Sorry, Princess, how was patrol?”

“It was fine, got one fledging and one really weird looking demon with this chain through his face.” Raven responded proudly. “Well, Xander helped with the demon but I did the fledging all by myself.”

“Good girl,” Buffy congratulated her. “How did it go with Xander and Willow patrolling with you?”

Raven shrugged her shoulders unwilling to insult her Mum’s best friends.

“Truth,” Spike prodded her.

“They’re fine. I love ‘em to death and they’re really good but all,” she rolled her eyes, “they do is talk about the glory days. Every time we come across something its, ‘well, Buffy would have done it this way’. Or they tell me stories about when you all were in high school.”

Her parents laughed at her complaint. When they had let Raven out to patrol, Willow and Xander had volunteered to go with her some nights. In a weird way they missed those days and it was a way for them to relive them. Spike just teased them that they couldn’t face the fact they were growing old.

“And it’s not the same as…” Raven started then stopped after a quick glance at Spike.

“Not the same as Connor patrolling with you, huh?” Buffy asked kindly.

“No,” Raven shook her head.

“Are you encouraging her feelings for him? Because if you are…” Spike started as he glared at Buffy.

“No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t empathize.” Buffy argued.

Everyone in Sunnydale had been surprised when at the end of August; Connor had shown up at the Blood’s door announcing he was moving to town to go to college there. Spike had thrown a fit saying he couldn’t then when Connor refused to go back to LA, he had called Angel and told him to remove his son from town or Spike would do it for him. It hadn’t worked. Angel hadn’t wanted his son in Sunnydale anymore than Spike did but he was old enough to make his own decisions.

Raven had been in a cloud ever since even though Connor still treated her like a pesky little sister. He and Clem had moved into an apartment together between the campus and the demon side of town. Connor came by two or three times a week to help Raven train and to patrol with her. The only positive thing that Spike could see in the situation was that Raven worked harder at her training to try to impress Connor which only made her better in her new role.

“Daddy, don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen. He won’t look at me like that.”

“He better not and you had better not be flirting with him. Are you listening to me, Raven?”

“Oh, God, I am going to bed. Good night.” Raven rolled her eyes at her father one more time before she flounced out of the room.

After the door closed behind their daughter the air between them filled with tension. It had been an argument that Buffy and Spike had been having since Connor moved to town. Once again Angel was between them and they hadn’t been able to make peace about it. Spike was unyielding on the subject and because of it Angel had been unable to fulfill his promise to settle things between him and his Grand-childe.

“Please, don’t,” Buffy whispered as she turned to lay a hand on Spike’s chest. Her fingers gently caressed him in an effort to calm him.

“Don’t what? Protect my family. Protect her.”

“What is it going to take for you to see that Connor is not Angel? He hasn’t even looked at her like he is interested in her.”

“He is following the same pattern as good old Angel though, isn’t he? You can’t deny that. You got called, Angel followed you here, helped you out which is the same thing that Connor is doing to Raven.”

“And the difference is that we are aware of everything and we’ll be able to help her make better decisions than I did.” Buffy shifted closer to Spike and moved her hand so she could turn his face toward her. The pain and hurt in his eyes made her ache for him. She caressed his cheek knowing that he meant the best but his constant anger and hostility toward the young man would only drive Raven to defend him. “Don’t alienate her, Baby; she needs you to be there for her. Especially the further along I get.”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t want to see her hurt.”

“I know.”

Spike sighed and dropped it. It seemed that no one but him could see what could possibly happen between the two. Maybe they didn’t want to see the temptations that could come up and he didn’t trust Connor to be able to make the best decisions for his daughter. Whenever he and Buffy tried to talk about, they always ended up fighting about her past with Angel. Buffy would defend her ex and Spike would only get angrier and more frustrated about the whole matter.

“You okay?” Buffy asked softly.

“Yeah, just dandy,” Spike wrapped a finger around a lock of her hair and pulled her down to kiss her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon for him so after kissing Buffy again he scooted out from under her.

“Where are you going?”

“Downstairs,” he answered as he fastened his pants.

“Spike, don’t do this. Please.”

“Do what? Go downstairs?”

Buffy sat up in bed readying herself for the argument that seemed inevitable.

“No, run. Keep secrets. Not talk to me.”

With a laugh he sat down on the bed again.

“I’m not running. Just feeling restless and I know I’m not going to sleep anytime soon. I’m going to go downstairs and start playing around with some ideas for the next book.”

“Thought you were going to wait to start writing again?”

“Am, pet. Just brainstorming some. Keep things fresh but I promised that I’d been around more to help out so no actually writing.”

Buffy’s gaze dropped to her hands as she sighed. She knew that there had been a lot of pressure on Spike lately. She needed him more because of the pregnancy. More help with the house and the kids. And they had been faced with the full demands of parenthood as soon as school had started. His book was going to go on sale shortly before Christmas and he was dealing with his publisher and the requests for public appearances. Then there was the whole thing with training Raven and the business with Connor. Of course there were also all the changes in him. Their life had just gotten fuller and busier in the last month then it had ever been. Even though most of it was cause for happiness, she also knew that neither of them had ever dealt with this much at one time and she was worried that they wouldn’t be able to handle it all.

“So, everything is okay? No secrets. No problems I don’t know about.”

She sounded so worried that Spike could only reach out and pull her to him. He hugged her tightly as she wrapped her arms around him.

“There is nothing that you don’t know about.”

As his words spilled over her in a comforting wave she still felt tension coiled in him. Buffy pulled back so that she could look at him.

“What?”

“I saw Dawn yesterday. I didn’t tell you before because I was afraid that nothing would come of it.” He sighed. “But I know when I do that it usually it ends up being a big deal.”

She laughed softly.

“It’s okay. You’re forgiven. I take it that nothing happened?”

Spike shook his head. “No, I told her about the baby though. And I invited her to Raven’s party. Why don’t you try calling her?”

“You don’t mind?”

“No, she’ll probably listen to you before she’ll listen to me.” He ran his hand lightly down her hair, “Wanna come downstairs with me and raid the refrigerator.”

“Best damn idea you’ve had all night,” Buffy said as she climbed out of the bed.

Laughter rumbled through Spike as Buffy headed out of the room. He stood and followed her. He was as worried as she was about all the stress they were under and tried to be as open as he could be about things. Unfortunately, there were things that they talked about, knew about, went round and round about but they never really got settled. Angel and Connor were a big one. There was the lack of sex since she had found out she was pregnant and he knew that it shouldn’t bother him so much but it did. It had always been one of the things that had made him communicate his love to her and made him feel her love for him. He missed the intimate communing with Buffy’s body that would always remind him of how close they truly were.

He chuckled as he entered the kitchen and found Buffy with her nose already in the refrigerator. Her eyes turned to look at him briefly, “Are you laughing at me?” she asked as she handed him the milk and some stuff to make sandwiches.

“Never Baby.”

When she turned and smiled at him again, he saw the love in her eyes and felt the tension slowly leaving his body. He knew there wasn’t anything that he and this woman couldn’t get through together. He reached for the bread and as they sat at the table they started to talk about their doctor’s visit only a few hours away and the things that they needed to get done. As the conversation flowed between them they found themselves settling into the roles that were now comfortable for them.

TBC