Second Chance: Happy Family?
by Slayer Tash
Rating: PG-13
Will and I lead Faith upstairs. She is blindfolded and Uncle Xander is carrying our little girl up behind us.
“B this better not be some kinky sex act that you are always talking about, cause I just had a baby and I don’t really feel like group lovin’ right now.”
“You had a fantasy about Faith a blindfold and us?” Xander asked.
“No!” I turn and glare at him.
“Keep the Faith and the blindfold part and add a quart of ice cream and you have one” Faith laughs.
“Will you watch what you say he is holding our baby and I don’t want her dropped on her head.”
“Relax B, I am trying to make with a funny.”
“As you can tell from the non laughter you failed miserably.”
“True but I bet Xander has a giant woody right about now” she says as we stop at the door of the nursery.
Willow covers her mouth to stifle her laugh and Xander hands me Bailey and runs into the bathroom.
“Told ya so!” She is grinning from ear to ear.
“You are incorrigible sometimes Faith” I say.
Willow opens the door and I gently shove Faith forwards with my shoulder. She stumbles into the room almost landing on Willow.
“Hey careful, woman with a blindfold” she says steadying herself and standing up properly.
“Okay now we have been doing this for a couple of weeks now at different times. When you were at work or sleeping or downstairs setting a world record for amount of food consumed by one tiny person in one sitting” Willow babbled.
“Are you guys are gonna leave me and I do something really embarrassing then you come back in and take of the blindfold off and I am in a room full of people who have come to say ‘congratulations’ and I have just farted in front of all of them?”
“Yeah you got us there Faith, only now they have heard you so in a way you have embarrassed yourself already and we didn’t have to do a thing” I say pulling it off her.
She looks around my old room smiling.
“There are no people here.”
“We are people” Willow says.
“This is wicked cool B.”
“Hey it was a team effort. Xander custom built her dressers. Dawnie did the murals on the wall after Will and I did the painting.”
“Xander also pulled back the carpet to find floorboards which have all been polished to perfection” he said walking in.
“I bet that’s not all you polished” Faith said winking at him.
I shook my head “Our child is going to turn out severely damaged.”
“Your kid… what about me!” Xander said.
“Do you like the room” Willow said draping an arm over Faith’s shoulder.
“I love it, it is so amazing” she went over and began going through the draws and cupboards.
“I know you talked about us doing this but Willow and Xander came to me and said we really wanna give you guys something and Xander was already making the things and Willow was like ‘oh yeah we could totally surprise Faith’ and ‘I was all that would be cool’ and Dawnie was all ‘She’d totally love it can you imagine the look on her face’ and I couldn’t say no.”
“Thanks for that in depth explanation B but we have to get Bailey off to college now” she smiled at me.
I walked up to her “You like it?”
“I love it B” she looked down at Bailey in my arms “I think Little B here loves it as well.”
“I think she does regardless of the fact that she has pretty much just slept right through this” I smile.
“She is still sleeping with us though right?”
I nod “Crib is all set up in our room just waiting for her.”
“Well let’s get her set up in her new bed then.”
“That’s the 12th one tonight” I say dusting myself off and helping Xander up off the ground.
“They are coming thick and fast.”
“Means one thing.”
He looks at me “He is here?”
I nod “Spider sense affirms so, he is watching us.”
“I never got him and the watching thing.”
“It’s what creepy serial killers do Xander, you watch the movies you should know that.”
“Do I come across as creepy?” He is standing in front of me just like that.
“Gotta say Angelus was always kind of creepy” I cross my arms.
“Straight into the pleasantries I see Buff” he smiles.
“All I got for you Soul Boy is a big can o whoop ass.”
“I see you have been taking elocution lessons from your new…how do I put it? Whore that’s right, please correct me if I am wrong.”
I punch him in the face then give him a roundhouse kick to the guts for good measure.
He stumbles back a bit laughing “I love it when I touch a sore spot.”
“Don’t fuck with me Angel, you better be here to fight cause I am past all your banter bullshit. I want this over here and now.”
“You think you can take me.”
“I know I can.”
It is a mad flurry of punches and kicks some hitting their mark others not. If he is hitting me I can’t feel it, I am flashing back to seeing Faith lying in that hospital bed all those months ago and it fuels my desire to kick his ass and dust him. I take a moment to square him up, a few more moves and I can let Mr Pointy have the final word.
“I have to say Buff, I like this you better. If I had known all it would have taken was a little rug munching to get you going I would have dropped to my knees in an instant and saved that pesky soul of mine.”
And just as quickly as he arrived he was gone.
“Dammit, I didn’t even have a chance to rebut” I scowl.
“B calm down you look wicked freaked.”
“Calm down! CALM DOWN! Did you just hear what I said Faith.”
“I did Angelus is in town and you guys had a rumble.”
“Not that part” I pull my jacket off and throw it on my chair “He implied I was a rug muncher.”
“Hate to break the bubble B but you are.”
I stop and look at her she makes a good point “I know but he degraded it…he called you a whore.”
“He was trying to get you riled up and it worked B. Just chill out. I just got little B off to sleep and I don’t want to wake her.”
I flop onto the bed next to her “Anytime you wanna take patrol feel free. 12 before the fight with Angel and then about 6 on the way home. Between her 3am feeds and the 4am wake up calls I am fucked.”
“Gladly, I am tired of the shitty diapers, spit up and you and Dawn’s mess. I am there tomorrow night B and you can stay here and deal with babies and a moody teen.”
"On second thoughts I don’t think you are ready, I mean Bailey is only a few weeks old and she ca-"
“Too late B, you relinquished patrol rights.”
I pout and look at her doing my best puppy dog face.
“Forget it B…shoulda thought of that before you knocked me up!”
I grab my pillow and hit her with it “It was all you” I say defiantly.
“Tcha! You are the one that seems to have one true happiness moments not me.”
I stop with the pillow and look at her “What is that supposed to mean? This is my fault?”
“Is what your fault B?”
“What Angel is doing now, are you blaming me?”
She is frowning now and I can tell by the look in her eyes she is trying to figure out where this attack came from.
“Spill it Faith? You think this is my fault. My ex honey has come back with his panties in a bunch because I have moved on and he can’t.”
Bailey is starting to grizzle and Faith leaps off the bed.
“I don’t think that at all B, god how can you go from stupid pillow fight to me blaming the world's problems on you in 5 seconds.”
She picks our daughter up who is now screaming her head off.
“You made it perfectly clear in your true happiness comments.”
“You took that seriously!”
“I can’t talk to you when you are like this.”
“Like what?”
I go over and take Bailey.
“When you are being reasonable and making sense” I smile at my own stupidity and then at my daughter who has seemed to stop crying almost immediately.
“How did you do that?”
Faith comes over and stands beside us.
“No idea, every time I pick her up when she is crying she just seems to stop.”
“Maybe it is because she wonders who is this wonderfully attractive woman picking me up.”
She snuggles up to us.
“I think it is my nose.”
“What about your nose?”
“The bit at the end, you know the bit that Cordy always says looks kinda funky.”
She kisses my nose “I have no idea what you are talking about, I think your nose is perfect.”
“I am sorry I wigged, he just knows what buttons to push and I hate that he can do that to me.”
“Don’t worry about it B.”
“I do though, I need us to be working cause when he hits us it is gonna be bad.”
I just jinxed us I realise that but I have something to fight for here. I have a family to protect, I always did but this time it is different. This time I am ready to kill him, no more stupid schoolgirl crush hoping part of him is still alive, no back up spells. This time it would be over and I just hoped it was us that were left standing.
...to be continued...