AN: Once again I must rant about how amazed I am over how quickly I'm updating. Don't think I'll make a habit of this however, these chapters were written in one weekend, so I merely have to upload the chapters. For any readers of "Fortunate Son", that'll take me more time to update unfortunately. And thanks again to all the reviewers! :)

Chapter 10: Edgy Bedfellows

Spike clapped his hands together loudly and galloped down the stairs, ready to indulge in some daytime programming action. He stalked into the living room where a sniffling Willow sat cuddled on the couch, watching TV. A snowstorm of crumpled, moist tissues surrounded her, but Spike remained oblivious to all of this as he snatched up the remote control and switched "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" to his own channel.

"Hey!" Willow protested. "I was watching that!"

Spike ungraciously plopped onto the couch and steadied his elbows on his knees in expectation. "Sorry Red, but you can watch Jim Dandy Stewart play the do-gooder another time. Passions is on."

Willow swiped the remote, flipping back to American Movie Classics. "I said I was watching it. This is only the sixth time I've seen it, I have to make sure Mr. Smith defeats the evil plutocrats of Washington."

Spike gave her a cold hard look of incredulity. "Are you daft woman? This is Passions we're talking about. While you keep sniveling away at the Frank Caprasonian lameness, I'm missing the heartfelt reunion between Luis and Sheridan."

Willow ceased her sniffling to deliver a venomous glower to Spike. She looked up at him in a way that made him feel blessed to have missed out on last spring's "Black Magic Girls Gone Wild 2002". If she was scaring the hell out of him now, he didn't even want imagine the look ol' Warren got minutes before Willow fillet-of-souled him. With danger in her eyes, fueled primarily by rising hormones, Willow uttered two words: "Well bollocks."

Spike paused, but continued grappling with her. "Come on, give it," he demanded, holding his hand out for the remote.

"No." Willow held it high in the air, veering it away from him.

"Don't even test me Red, give it."

"No."

"Give it!"

"Oh now that you've asked nicely . . . no." Willow's voice was cold.

He lunged swiftly, grabbing the remote with lighting-like quickness. He changed the channel and looked to Willow with a smug smirk. Willow resumed shooting daggers his way.

"Change it back Spike."

He gave her a cocky leer. "Or what, pet? Whatcha gonna do to me? Eviscerate my entrails? Try running me over with a twelve-wheeler? Hurl a big ol' ball of combustion my way?"

Willow was stung by the reference to last year and froze. For a moment, she looked like she was going to do all of those things, which Spike expected with a leer still in place. But then to his horror, her face crumpled into a teary frown and she began emitting whimpering-like, tiny sobs that gave way to noisier weeping.

Spike stared at her and shuffled his feet in guilt, cursing himself silently. How the hell did he ever get himself into this mess? Since when did he become so concerned about injuring Red's feelings? Oh, he could stand up to the best and bloodiest of the demon world, but give him one very pregnant redhead and his cool cockiness crumbled immediately. "Balls," he sighed, threading a hand through blonde hair as Willow continued crying. "I can't win." He threw the remote back at Willow, who grabbed it with a quick, satisfied smile that made Spike's blood boil and his eyes narrow into slits.

Damn Willow. Damn her. Damn whatever major estrogen trip she was on that was lodging a bug up her ass the size of Texas. Damn the damned pregnancy that made damned Willow so damned anal in the damn first place.

Goose-stepping into the kitchen, Spike found Buffy tiredly cleaning shards of glass from the floor that lay in a pool of milk. He launched into whining immediately.

"Buffy you know the living room is under my sole dominion every weekday, three to four in the afternoon. You know this. It's an established fact."

Buffy sighed as she crouched on the floor, handling the glass carefully. "You can watch your little show upstairs honey."

"Upstairs?! Upstairs the woman says, ha!" Spike shook his head disgustedly. "I don't get the full cinematic experience of the 27-inch upstairs."

"Well tough Spike, I guess you'll just have to skip a day of Timmy and the gang with as little suffering as possible."

"Why can't I just kick Red out? It's not her bloody television after all."

"It's not yours either," Buffy pointed out.

Spike shrugged. "Hey, we're practically living a common law marriage, what's yours is mine, baby."

Buffy sighed. "Look Spike, just leave her alone. It took me forever just to get her out of the kitchen. She's been driving me crazy all afternoon, at least this way, she's somewhat quiet."

Spike suddenly became aware of the mess Buffy was rummaging through. "What happened 'ere?" he said, cocking his head at the mop and dustpan stationed nearby. "Snacking accident, someone running with scissors, what?"

"Willow dropped the bottle of milk," Buffy explained with a sigh. "And she wouldn't stop apologizing for it. She made it seem like she had committed an act of high treason. And let me tell you, the tears? Made Noah's little crisis look like a rain shower."

Spike made a face as he collapsed on a stool by the kitchen island. "Red's getting a little too hard to handle, isn't she? Her emotions go willy-nilly and all across the spectrum."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. My level of impatience with her and her stupid hormones makes me seriously question the whole slayer clause of not being able to kill people. Maybe Faith had the right idea after all."

Spike smirked. "So a pregnant best friend is all that's needed to pull you to the dark side, is it? Wish I had known that back in the day."

Buffy shot a half-chastising, half-loving grin, wrinkling her mouth into the crinkle that Spike always loved. With a sudden wicked gleam in his eye, he neared her in a long, seductive swagger.

"Well . . . if Red's so suddenly preoccupied," he said, his voice came out low and whispery. "Maybe she won't notice if we . . . y'know . . . preoccupy ourselves." Spike snaked an arm around Buffy's waist, prompting a lascivious smile. Giggling, Buffy laced her fingers around Spike's neck and relaxed into his arms. With Willow constantly around, it seemed like they never had enough privacy to do this. She was making a nightly habit of perching by their bed, complaining of an unquenchable desire for strange foods, like salami or oysters or curry, so having some time to themselves at night seemed out. And during the day, Buffy was either too busy counseling at the high school or straitjacketing Willow from pregnant insanity. So even fifteen minutes of zipping off into the laundry room for some "romantic rendez-vous-ing" was out as well.

"Dawn's upstairs studying . . ." Buffy said, playfully tracing patterns on Spike's chest. "Wouldn't want to disturb her . . . "

"Well we could always sneak off to the basement," Spike suggested with an evil raise-of-the-eyebrow. "Just a plug-n-chug for a few minutes and no one would be the none the wiser."

Buffy smacked him. "Pig! 'Plug n' chug'? That's you're idea of seduction?"

"What would you prefer? Tennyson? Keats? 'Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, to feel forever its soft fall and swell, awake forever in a sweet unrest, still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever--or else swoon to death'?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "'Buffy, you're beautiful' would've done."

Spike chuckled and caught her lips into a passionate, stormy embrace. Moaning contentedly, Buffy curled her arms around his neck even tighter and followed his lead, backing up towards the door of basement. Blindly reaching her hand out for the knob, she began to slump onto the door as the embrace became harder to control. They almost forgot entirely about the basement as Spike moved his hand up to the collar of her blouse, reaching for a button and-----

Sniff, sniff. "That was such a wonderful movie," came a teary sob. Sniff, sniff.

Heaving a loaded sigh, Spike sank against Buffy, who of course turned out of the kiss to gaze begrudgingly at Willow.

"Willow . . . crying . . . again." Buffy tried to look pleased with the inappropriate timing of her best friend, but she couldn't help but sound flat. "Didn't the movie just cheer you right up?"

Willow nodded, blowing her nose with another tissue. "It was great, it was heart-warming . . . I'm just . . . I'm so happy," she said in another strangled sob.

Spike broke apart from Buffy and shook his head, puckering his brow. Trying to suppress his disappointment, he shrugged and made his way to the living room. "Well at least I get to watch my program now. Have fun comforting the emotional train wreck. See you in a couple of hours."

Willow pulled her lip into a pout. "Emotional train wreck? I am not an emotional train wreck! Just look at me, I'm a fortress of emotional solidarity and----oh! Someone bought a new pack of Ho-Hos!" She immediately turned her attentions the snack food and began stuffing her face with blissful sighs and once again, tears. "They're just so good," she was lamenting. "I've never tasted anything so good!"

Buffy resisted the urge to cram every last Ho-Ho into Willow's mouth just to get her quiet. "That's great Willow, but . . . don't you think you should . . . y'know . . . get out more?"

Willow frowned with the snack food in her mouth. "Where did that come from?"

"Well it just seems like you've spent the last few weeks cooped up inside the house all mopey and brooding, eating compulsively and crying over toothpaste commercials. I just think it would be good for you to get out of the house more, do things."

Willow straightened derisively. "You make me sound like some trailer trash hermit who uses a rag on a stick to wash herself. I think I'm doing fine."

Buffy gave her a knowing look. "Willow, it's 3:14 in the afternoon and you're still in your pajamas and you still haven't showered. I'm beginning to think that the rag and stick aren't too far off."

"Hey!" The pout was returning, but the whininess was replaced by flickers of anger. "Nice way to talk to the gal who's carrying your little bundle of cross-dimensional, genetically freakish joy. If you think I'm broody and mopey, well . . . that's not really my fault is it? I'm only dealing with the crap you and Spike gave me."

Buffy began to feel anger towards her best friend rise in her as well. "Lots of people get pregnant Willow. It's not an excuse you can use to say, "Stop everything while I spend the next nine months on the couch with one hand up the cookie jar"."

"I'm doing the best I can, okay? You think I like this situation any more than you do? You think I like lugging around this watermelon I call a stomach? You think I like that this kid makes me do nothing but go through tissue and prepackaged snack boxes by the dozen? You think I'm overly ecstatic about having to go through all of this for some child that isn't even mine?"

Willow paused and there was real hurt and anger in her voice and Buffy knew not how to respond to this. A part of her was still inflamed with annoyance and irritation towards Willow, but another part of her gave way to slight guilt. In the larger picture, Willow was right. It wasn't really her fault she was acting this way. She had a perfect right to be acting this way. The only reason she was acting this way was because of something Buffy and Spike had inadvertently created. Buffy didn't have much of a right of demanding Willow to cheer up just because her moods were inconveniencing everyone else. Buffy knew this logically, but it didn't do much to ease the frustration she presently felt. So she just stared at Willow, teeth on edge. Willow glared right back and the tension in the room was more than palpable.

Suddenly the shrill cry of the phone ringing broke through the unspoken and heavy ill will. Buffy crept over to pick it up, never removing her edgy glance from Willow. "Hello?" Her voice was inappropriately hard for such a greeting.

"Hi, umm, could I talk to Willow?"

Buffy hesitated when she heard the feminine voice come clear and heady across the line. It was vaguely familiar somehow in a way she couldn't place. The warmness, the intonation . . . it reminded her of someone . . .

Buffy handed the phone to Willow, who accepted it with a confused look. "Hello?" Buffy folded her arms across her chest and watched her, still finding reasons to be irritated with her. But her irritation began to fade as she saw Willow's expression turn from agitated and hurt to positively jubilant. And she wondered who it was that could possibly make Willow glow this way. She tried to discern who it was, but she couldn't gather much from the broken bits of conversation.

"Right now? Why, sure! Busy . . . uh, no . . . Really? Yeah, me too! Okay . . . okay . . . of course. Okay, I'll see you there." Hanging up the phone joyfully, Willow threw a tissue at Buffy and whisked past her in excitement.

Buffy stared blankly, blinking twice as her mind went over this instant metamorphosis. "What's going on?"

"I'm gonna take a shower," called Willow as she scurried from the kitchen. Buffy could practically hear the smile bursting in her voice.

"Where are you going?"

Willow paused and stuck her head back into Buffy's view. There was a gleam in her eye that Buffy hadn't seen for months. "Out."