Title: Buns In LA
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
Series: Sequel to A Bun in the Oven. I’m fairly sure there won’t be another one after this.
Rating: fairly harmless
Background: Spike and Buffy have had a baby, Josie. They visit Angel, a still baby Connor, Cordelia, Fred, Gunn, Wesley and Lorne (who’s living in the hotel) in LA.
Pairings: Buffy/Spike, Angel/Cordelia.
Prologue: In the car, May 2003
“Spike, are you sure we can’t stop for a minute or two? I have to feed Josie, or she’s going to die of hunger and my bra is going to explode.”
“Buffy, love, we have to get to LA before dawn, or Josie’s going to grow up with a pile of dust for a father. Why didn’t you feed her before we came out?”
“I didn’t want to wake her,” Buffy says, stubbornly. “That would have been bad, wouldn’t it, Giles?”
Giles takes his glasses off and cleans them carefully, to avoid looking at the screaming infant next to him. “If you say so, Buffy.”
Part 1: When the four of them arrived at the hotel, they had a brief moment of panicked argument about who went in first, but eventually settled on Buffy in front, carrying
Josie, with Spike and Giles to back her up as needed.
When Buffy got to the door, however, she discovered the problem with this plan: she couldn’t open it with her hands full of screaming child.
“Spike, would you…” she began, only to tail off when a green demon with red horns opened the door from inside. She backed off a couple of steps, frowning.
Lorne didn’t notice. He was sticking his fingers in his ears in an attempt to block out the sound of
Josie’s cries. “Another baby!” he groaned, “We don’t need another baby!”
As her child seemed to be doing as much slaying as was needed, Buffy took a step forward, to see Angel appearing in the gloomy hallway. He smiled, and beckoned her in, pulling Lorne out of the way. “Come in,” he said, “Can I do anything?”
“Fifteen minutes privacy should sort us out,” Buffy told him, and he pointed towards his office silently. Gratefully, Buffy took
Josie away to a room where she’d feel happy stripping off enough clothes to breast-feed.
Part 2: In the main hallway, Angel and Cordelia stood side by side, looking at Giles and Spike. Lorne seemed to have disappeared.
Cordelia was the first to break the silence, of course. “So, Spike, you’re a daddy too, huh?”
Spike nodded, unsure for once what to say.
“It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
To this Giles nodded firmly- he’d been one of the first people roped in to diaper changing- and Spike said, “Yeah. Yes, that’s right.”
“That’s nice,” Cordelia chirped, ignoring Angel’s hand gripping her arm, “She and Connor will be able to get married. Or is that incest?”
Angel finally manages to open his mouth. “Cordy, Connor is not marrying Josie.”
“Hell, no,” Spike explodes, “I’m not being co-fathers-in-law with the poof!”
Lorne spoke up, stepping out of one of Angel’s patches of patented darkness-for-lurking-in. “So the baby’s yours, Spike? I thought…” He looked over at Connor, sleeping through all this in his Moses basket, and tailed off. “How are you finding it, all the changing diapers, and things?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t want to talk about,” Angel cut in.
“It’s fine, Angelus. I’m sort of enjoying it, actually. And who are you, green person, anyway?”
“Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan. But most people just call me Lorne,” the Pylean replied, reaching out to shake Spike’s hand.
Part 3: They chat awkwardly for a while, until Buffy and Josie emerge from the office.
“Sorry about that,” Buffy says, “She’s asleep now.”
Lorne, Angel, and Cordelia gathered round the Slayer, and she handed Josie over to Lorne. “That’s a very good-looking baby you’ve got there,” Lorne commented.
Buffy smiled, and was about to thank him, but Angel interrupted, “Don’t you think Connor’s good looking, then?”
“Of course,” Lorne began, but Spike didn’t let him finish.
“Nah. Connor’s ugly.”
“How dare you say that, Spike?” Angel turned round, looking at Spike threateningly.
“’Cause it’s true?”
“It is not!” The taller vampire lunged at Spike, only to find that there was a hand pulling on his arm- a hand that was stronger than him.
“No fighting, please,” Buffy said, “You’ll wake Connor and Josie. Spike, you stay here- I want to talk to Angel.” She led her former boyfriend off into the private office where she’d so recently been feeding
Josie.
Spike shrugged at Cordelia, who was wearing a rather murderous expression. “I didn’t mean it,” he said. “And anyway, it’s not like you’re the boy’s real mother, is it?”
Part 4: In the office, Angel and Buffy sit down for a talk.
Angel, doing his best to keep his wits about him, sat on the opposite side of the desk to Buffy. Harder to kiss her from there. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
“It’s not easy,” she confessed, “Spike does his best, but he isn’t coping with having a soul very well.”
“It’s hard,” Angel said, and smiled thinly. “Personal experience speaking.”
Buffy smiled across at him, and nodded. “Yeah. He’s better with the baby than I am, though.”
“You’re coping with the staying awake all night, then?”
“I was kind of used to it anyway- and Spike’s on vampire time, feeding at three on the morning doesn’t faze him because it feels like mid-afternoon.”
Angel nodded understanding. “I’ve never really got that sorted out, between needing to work at night and needing to see people during the day.”
“Yeah- I had to hand over patrolling to the Scoobies for several weeks, but I’m back on it now.”
“You are? Shouldn’t you be- resting or something?”
“Why should I? I’m fine. I look after Josie as best I can, but it’s not what I’m good at, so I hand her over to people who are good at it, and go out to do what I was born to do. Slay.”
“The others don’t mind?”
“I think they prefer it. Willow doesn’t like fighting- it makes her want to use more magic than’s really good for her- but she’s enjoying having a baby to look after. And Anya’s helping, too.”
“Anya?”
“The vengeance demon, Xander used to be with before the whole wedding thing, when she was human.”
“Oh, I remember. Heard about her before, haven’t I?”
“Likely. You might even have met her at some point.”
“I’m not sure. Anyway, if she’s helping, that’s good.”
“It is- all the demons are being really rather friendly and helpful. Halfrek’s appointed herself
Josie’s fairy gothmother. Which is strange, considering that she was cursing us only last year.”
“And how’s Dawn taking it?”
“Okay, for the most part. She’s being more independent now- and now she’s got some fighting skills, I’m okay with that, too.”
“So most people are taking it well?”
“I think so. We announced it in the Sunnydale Herald, so we’d have heard if anyone really wasn’t.”
“You announced it? What did you say?”
“Um, ‘A daughter, Josie Kathryn, was born to Spike and Buffy Summers on Tuesday, 9th March 2003. Contributions for the college fund appreciated.’ Anya insisted on the last part.”
Angel smiled again, more genuinely this time. “Smart girl. I bet you had fun choosing the wording.”
“We did. Giles still thinks we shouldn’t have mentioned Spike. He only got in because Willow worked out that if you say ‘Spike and Buffy Summers’ most people will assume that’s Spike Summers.”
“You didn’t want to put ‘Mr and Mrs the Bloody’, then?”
“No! She’s Josie Kathryn Summers, not Josie the Bloody.”
“Okay- joke. I do that sometimes. Why did you pick Josie Kathryn, anyway?”
“Josie because it sounds like Joyce, and Kathryn- well, Xander suggested it, and Spike agreed. Which is so rare I accepted it in a moment of shock.”
“I wonder where it comes from, that they’d agree.”
“Something to do with one of the television shows they spend forever watching, I expect. Seven-of-Nine’s real name, maybe.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I’m hardly the expert either, but it doesn’t sound bad, so we’ve stayed with it.”
“Changing the subject completely, are you staying here for a few days? It wasn’t very clear when you phoned.”
“If that’s okay with you, we’ll stay for a day or two. We’ll be needed back in Sunnydale before too long.”
“That’s fine.”
“Good.” Buffy tried to smile, but it came to grief when she yawned.
“Tired?” Angel asked, but decided she didn’t actually need to answer that. “Come on- I’ll find you a room.”
Part 5: Finding a room
“Here, you can have this one. I’ll go find you some sheets.”
“Um, Angel?” Buffy said. “Two things: one, Josie will need a cot, and two, Spike and I normally…” She looked down.
Embarrassed, Angel looked away too. “A, err, double bed? Um, yeah, sure.” She glanced up and saw the pain in his eyes.
“You’re okay with that, right?”
“Err, yeah. It’s fine.”
“Only I thought you and Cordelia were…”
“We are. In love, I mean. Not that I don’t still love you. We just haven’t… we don’t…”
“You don’t share a bed every night?”
“No. She still has her apartment- because of Dennis- and with Connor, we haven’t managed to work out a way…” He bit his lip. “Come on, let’s find you a room.”
“No! I mean, yes. But- not if you don’t want me too. Spike can look after Josie
tonight.”
“It’s fine,” he repeated, though they both knew he was lying. “I think there’s a, err, larger room just along here.”
“You don’t know?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Not really. It’s such a big place, I can’t remember what all of them are like.”
At that, she smiled at him, and the tension was eased. “You should carry a map around with you.”
They walk off down the corridor, taking comfort in the other’s presence without any need for strife.