A/N: This was just an idea that I've had for a while now and finally turned it into something. It will probabbly be 5 chapters, which I have all planned out. Might get a little angsty at times but will end happily - I promise!! Takes place about 3 years after the "Healing" and "Breathe Me" stories. It would help to read those first but it's not necessary; everything should be explained inside.
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and/or Angel belongs to the creators of the show and not me. The song "Wild Horses" is by The Sundays (the song Buffy and Angel danced to in the Buffy season 3 episode "The Prom").
Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away – Ch. 1
Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady, you know who I am,
You know I can't let you slide through my hands
Buffy blinked away a few tears that were welling in her eyes as she peered at the tiny stick of plastic. Never had a single, horizontal, solid blue dash been so upsetting. She squinted at the stick, hoping maybe that would change it. Seeing that it wasn't going to change, Buffy sighed and leaned against the bathroom counter. Never taking her eyes off the blue dash peeking out of the tiny window on the stick she slowly sank down to the ground. Resting her forehead against her hand she thought back to the conversation that led her to being crouched on the bathroom floor holding a negative pregnancy test.
Three months earlier…
"So Dawn, how's school going?" Angel asked before taking a sip of his beer. Buffy placed the chicken dish in the center of the table as she sat down in her seat. Dawn, who had been digging into the mashed potatoes instantly perked up at her brother-in-law's question. She took any chance she could to talk about college.
"It's so good!" she said excitedly. "I love all my classes and even though it's a lot of work it keeps me busy, not too, too busy though, I mean I still have friends and a social life and – "
"Okay you love college, we get it," Buffy said with a strained smile, cutting her sister off.
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Just because you were terrible at anything school related doesn't mean I can't share my success." Buffy shot her a glare and then looked to her husband for help. He just shrugged at her as if to say, "She's your sister".
Although avoiding little tiffs like this was nearly impossible with the Summers sisters, Buffy was grateful for any time she could get with her younger sister. Dawn was in her freshman year at UCLA and was staying with Buffy and Angel for the weekend to visit since she so rarely saw them. About a month or so after Angel had showed broken up at Buffy's apartment in Rome after his fight with the Senior Partners, Willow had found a way to bind his soul. They officially got back together after that and have been inseparable ever since. They traveled frequently and had lived all over the world due to the many slayers that kept popping up everywhere. That was Buffy and Angel's main job; to locate, recruit, and train new slayers. They would introduce them to their calling and then give them the choice to stay where they were, be relocated somewhere else that needed them, or to just completely ignore the calling all together. Buffy completely reinvented the slayer tradition by actually giving the young girls a chance to choose their future.
With hundreds of trained slayers stationed all over the world, demons and vampires were few and far between. The girls' main purpose was to keep an eye out for anything suspicious and to let the bad guys know that they weren't letting their guard down. It was on a trip to find a new slayer that Buffy and Angel ran into some demons with an extremely rare and particularly nasty plot to suck the world into hell. It was after they defeated the demons that Angel Shanshued and became human (with some not so human strength…just in case). Buffy and Angel saw this latest attempt at an apocalypse as the demon's last hurrah and Angel's human transformation as the Powers' way of telling them to retire. Since Angel signed away his Shanshu to gain the trust of the Circle of the Black Thorn, he asked Giles to look into why he was alive. Giles found that Angel's signature never really meant anything. A prophecy is written in stone; it will happen. Simply signing it won't change what has already been destined to happen.
Almost immediately after Angel regained his humanity, he proposed to Buffy and they had a small intimate beach wedding at sunset. Since then, Buffy and Angel have been doing mainly management and administrative duties for the slayer compound. They made another smaller compound in Los Angeles for girls who wanted to stay in the States instead of going to the larger one in Rome. Buffy and Angel were currently living in LA to be closer to Dawn (who wanted to go to school there) and their friends (who wanted to move back to the US after traveling so much).
The dinner conversation moved away from Dawn's college life and fell into a comfortable silence as they ate. The quiet was broken when Dawn said suddenly, "You know what we need around here?"
"What?" Buffy said distractedly before taking a sip of her drink.
"Some babies," Dawn answered. Buffy choked on her drink at Dawn's words and after a few coughs to clear her throat looked up across the table at Angel who had a forkful of chicken that was paused mid-air on its journey to his mouth.
Buffy pulled her eyes away from her husband's to glare at her sister. "Excuse me?" she asked.
Dawn scrambled for an explanation to her request, not expecting the shock it would cause Buffy and Angel. "I just mean, well you guys are married now, and Angel's human, and isn't that what married people do?" At their blank looks she continued. "Oh come on, you two don't even slay anymore! It's not like the baby wouldn't be safe! And besides, I really want to be an Aunt."
After a tense beat, Buffy stood up and started to clear the table. "Well just because you want something is no reason for people to just start having babies Dawn!" Buffy said in a voice much higher than normal as she hurriedly cleared away Angel and Dawn's plates, regardless of whether or not they were done eating.
After Buffy had done all the dishes and finally realized that there was nothing left in the spacious kitchen to clean, Buffy wandered through the living room of the penthouse, looking for something else to clean, anything that would get her mind off the awkward topic brought up at dinner. Sure, there was nothing that she wanted more than to have a family with Angel, but she always viewed it as something that was unattainable or at least in the far off future. She was so preoccupied with the assumption that they could never have normal that she didn't realize that they had become normal. Buffy froze as the realization struck her that they could do this. There was only one question remaining; was she ready to become a mother?
Buffy slowly walked towards her and Angel's bedroom where she knew he was. She had avoided him since dinner with Dawn and finally plucked up the courage to talk about what she knew was an inevitable conversation. She quietly opened the door and walked in to find Angel walking out of the bathroom in nothing put a pair of grey sweatpants to sleep in. Buffy gulped as she glanced at his toned and bare chest. What was is about that man that could still turn her to a puddle of mush after all these years?
Angel stopped in his tracks as he saw his wife enter the room. He could tell there was a lot on her mind and offered her a warm smile. His smile widened when she cut right to the chase; it was a very Buffy thing to do.
"Look I know what Dawn said was…" she trailed off, unable to think of the right word to finish the sentence with.
"Interesting," Angel finished for her with a smile.
Buffy looked up at him with wide eyes and said, "I was going to say 'silly', but…" Angel just continued to smile at her and she gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth as she realized what he was trying to say.
"Oh my God…you want to?" she said, breathing heavily. "You want to have a baby?" she finished with a squeak.
Angel walked towards her and placed his large, warm hands on her shoulders. "Buffy, all I've ever wanted to do is to have a family with you." When he saw tears well up in her eyes he quickly added, "I completely understand if you're not ready though. I mean I've been waiting over two hundred and fifty years to do this, and you're only twenty-six-"
"No!" Buffy said, cutting him off. "I was so caught up with the whole 'being normal' thing that I never realized that I was…am ready."
Angel flashed her a brilliant smile and dipped his head to kiss her deeply. Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer to him. She pulled away briefly to whisper huskily, "Why don't we get started?" Angel let out a chuckle and led her backwards toward the bed.
Buffy almost laughed at herself as she thought back to that day. How simple it had seemed then. How normal. Buffy shuddered at that word. She should know that nothing was ever normal for her. She was angry at herself for getting so upset; how could she expect that she and Angel would get everything they ever wanted? Things didn't work that way for them. She picked herself up off the bathroom floor and wrapped the negative pregnancy test in toilet paper before tossing it in the garbage can.
Buffy walked into the bedroom and started to get ready for another day. Angel had left early to go to the LA slayer training facility to get some things done, and Buffy "overslept" so she could take yet another pregnancy test in private.
Later that day, Buffy was in the small kitchen at the slayer compound trying to make herself a cup of coffee. She had been fiddling with the machine for a few minutes now and was starting to get really frustrated. Buffy nearly jumped out of her skin when Willow walked into the kitchen.
"God Willow, you scared me," Buffy said before turning back to the coffee maker.
Willow gave her a strange look and opened the refrigerator and taking a look inside. "You okay? You're not usually that…jumpy," Willow asked.
"Yeah," Buffy said, still focused on the coffee pot. "I just can't get this…" she paused, still trying to get it to work. "Stupid thing to work!" Buffy exclaimed, slamming her fist on the counter before taking a step back from it.
Willow looked worriedly at her best friend. She tentatively took a step towards the offending machine and pressed a few buttons before turning to look at Buffy. Buffy knew Willow was staring intently at her but she just at the coffee that started to drip into the pot.
"Are you sure you're okay? You've been tense all day," Willow said.
With a sigh Buffy ran her hand through her hair and said, "Yeah it's nothing, really." Willow continued to give Buffy her resolve face. "Alright! Enough with the third degree!" She took a deep breath before continuing. "It's just that…well, I was…late this month and I just thought…It was stupid, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up like that," Buffy finished, looking down.
Willow's eyes widened. "You mean you thought you were-." Buffy nodded before she could finish. "Oh Buffy…" Willow said with concern for her best friend. "I'm so sorry, I know that you and Angel have been trying…I just always thought, well I don't really know what I thought. How long have you been trying?"
Buffy looked up, blinking tears out of her eyes as she thought. "Three, maybe four months?" The two women stood in silence for a few moments, both not sure what to say. Finally Willow spoke first.
"Buffy, I would ask Giles about it. What if it's something you know…supernaturally related? Slayers and ex-vampires don't usually try to have children, it could be something having to do with that."
Buffy offered her friend a small smile. "Thanks Willow, I'll ask him about it."
Willow placed her hand on her friends arm. "Buffy, you and Angel are meant to have a family. You guys deserve it, more than anything."
Buffy sighed and said, "Yeah, I know," in a quiet voice.
Buffy walked into her office, glad to have some peace and quiet where she could think. She sat down behind her desk and stared at the phone before picking it up. She dialed the familiar number to the slayer compound in Rome where Giles was staying for a few weeks.
"Hello?" said a British voice that Buffy couldn't help but smile at.
"Hey Giles," Buffy said.
"Buffy! How are you? It's been a while."
"Yeah, I know. I'm good, how are things in Rome?"
"Everything seems to be going good here, all under control."
Buffy smiled and was glad to hear that everything was okay. "I just had a question, or a favor to ask you." Now came the difficult part.
"Of course," Giles said, telling her to continue.
"Um, I was wondering if you could do some research on, um, slayer pregnancies?"
There was a long pause before Giles stammered, "Pregnancies? Are you… I mean I knew that you and Angel were trying, but I didn't realize that you were…"
"Oh, no, we…we're not," Buffy said with a tinge of sadness in her voice. "We're not pregnant. But the thing is that we've been trying for a few months now and it's just been…difficult. Willow thought that it might be something supernaturally related, with me being a slayer and Angel being a vampire turned human, that's making it more difficult. I was just hoping that you could find out some stuff that might help. Other slayers who have had children, that kind of thing."
"Yes, of course I will look into it. Maybe you should ask Willow if she can find some fertility spell or -"
"No," Buffy said cutting him off. "I want any spells or anything, I just want it to be…"
"Normal," Giles said finishing for her.
"Yeah," Buffy replied with a sigh. "Normal."
God she hated that word.
Hope you enjoyed!! Reviews are appreciated
-sailor's delight