Anya grinned at the couple's slightly annoyed expressions, but quickly frowned, ominously.

“I'm here to send you to hell, Spike, for ignoring my timetable," she bellowed before laughing. "Okay, so the whole 'one week or back to oblivion' thing may have been a bit exageratted."

"Not funny, Anya," Spike said, sighing in relief.

Anya shrugged.

"I've been told I'm very funny. A real 'hoot,' as some demons have put it. But, to each his own, I supposed. But, anyway, I just wanted to pop in to tell you guys something. Oh!! And congratulate you on the mating. I would’ve brought a fruit basket, but they’re so difficult to keep fresh when you’re jumping realms…”

Spike pulled the covers up around his midsection, and brought Buffy close to his chest, covering their nudity.

“Right…so on with it Anya, what happens now?”

“I was getting to that Mr. Snippy! Geez, Buffy, good luck with this one. Well, you should already be sensing some extra power, right?”

“Yeah yeah yeah, we know all that, but why did we get visions of each other’s past?”

“Gods! Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to interrupt a rhetorical question?”

Anya held a finger up and pointed at Spike, who was about to speak.

“That was another rhetorical question Spike. Gods you’re irritating! Well, with practice, you’ll be able to access each other’s memories. That burst of images you saw was basically all of the information downloading. But, what I was trying to say was that you have all of each other’s powers, so you’re like, super-vampire/Slayers. You’ll both be immortal, which I guess is no new deal for you, Spike, but now the only things that can actually kill you have to happen when you’re really far apart from each other…like if someone beheads you on both sides of the world, you’ll both die…the further apart you are, the more vulnerable you are. But when you’re together, you’re unstoppable.”

“We were unstoppable to begin with,” Buffy interjected.

“Right…well, ‘cept for that pesky little me bursting into flames bit.”

“Oh yeah…but you’re here now right?”

“I s’ppose.”

Anya huffed, but smiled.

“See? You’ve already started. You’re just off in your own little world.”

One of the infants began to stir, but quieted down almost instantly. Anya’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh! Oh yeah! I almost forgot about your kids! These two will lead especially fortunate lives. They’ll be immortal, just like you, and will age until they’re 21, which I think is the best age to be, personally…either that or 342, but then again, what do I know? Anyway, they’re immortal, but they aren’t stuck with each other like the two of you are, but they can be killed, beheading, staking, the usual, but they’ll be so powerful I doubt anyone’ll get that far. They have half-Slayer, half-vampire strengths with almost none of the weaknesses.”

“What do you mean almost? Y’know, for an all knowing specter, you sure are vague.”

“I am not a specter! I’m a spirit…a presence, if you will. Anyway, the worst weakness they’ll have is a slight over sensitivity to sunlight. Just remember the sunscreen when you’re at the beach, okay? Oh! I almost forgot! Spike you’re the same way now! Just lather up on the sun block and you’re good to go…just as long as you’re with Buffy. You’ll have to have a bit of blood every once in a while, but nothing like before. You could probably get by on a pint of pig’s blood a week! But don’t worry, the rest of your children will be fine in the sun and will be almost as strong as William and Joyce…and none of them will need blood like Spike.”

Buffy sat up, and Anya averted her eyes from the topless Slayer.

“Wait…more children? How many am I having here?”

“Well, I can’t give you an exact number, per se, but at least you only have six months of pregnancy instead of nine!”

Buffy sighed and laid back into Spike’s waiting arms.

“We’re going to have to get a bigger house.”

“Yeah. Four bedroom, two bath…‘merican dream, love.”

Anya piped up.

“You may want to think of a six or seven bedroom, but I don’t know anything!”

With a snap of her fingers, Anya was gone, enveloped in a puff of smoke. Buffy turned to her mate, admiring the set of teeth marks she’d left on his neck.

“So…you wanna get started on filling up that house?”


--


~~~Five Years Later~~~

“But Mommy!”

"No Joyce. You know how your Daddy is about that sort of thing. Just let it be…when he’s ready, and when he knows you’re ready, he’ll tell you. Now, back to training.”

Buffy held pink mats on her palms at waist level, and coached a spry blonde cherub with Shirley Temple curls on proper roundhouse kicks. After a few successful attempts, Joyce pouted yet again.

“But Mommy, I want to know what Daddy was like when he was ‘the Big Bad.’”

“Did he teach you that name?”

“Yes. Does that mean he was like the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood?”

Buffy smiled at her daughter, whose porcelain skin glistened with sweat.

“No honey. Your Daddy was never a wolf.”

“I wouldn’t quite say that pet.”

Spike leaned on the door smiling at the two girls. He held a toddler on his hip and a small boy, identical to Joyce aside from the length of the curls on his head, tugged at his shirt. The boy spoke first.

“Daddy, please tell us a story about when you were bad.”

“William, William, William…son…you’re too young to hear about that, and it’d scare your sisters.”

The toddler at Spike’s hip pouted.

“Story, Papa.”

Buffy smiled at the strawberry haired little girl, her pout every bit identical to her own.

“Well Miss. Tara Lyn Pratt, you’ve been hanging around your big brother too much!”

Tara gasped and buried her face in Spike’s shoulder. He grinned.

“It’s alright, poppet. Let’s go check on your little brother, yeah?”

She nodded and clutched onto Spike as he walked into an adjacent room where a tiny infant lay sleeping.

“You wanna say hi to him, poppet?”

Tara nodded, and blew a kiss to the sleeping infant.

“Hi Conrad!”

Buffy walked into the room, followed by Joyce and William.

“Spike?”

“Yeah, pet?”

“I wanted to wait until dinner to tell you, but since everyone’s together….”

“What is it Buffy?”

“Umm…well, we’re….”

“Buffy, you’re not….?”

“Pregnant again?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, yeah…I kind of am.”

“Guess we should’ve listened to the bird when she said to get an extra room.”

“I suppose…but I would have thought with an eternity to have children, we wouldn’t have this many within five years!”

Buffy and Spike exchanged loving smiles, as the children cheered and danced around them.

“Yay! Another baby!”

A puff of smoke burst into the room, and Anya emereged.

“Another three.”

Spike’s eyes widened.

“What?”

Buffy smacked at his chest.

“What in the hell are you eating that you’re this potent?”

Spike shrugged.

“Dunno pet, you’re the one feeding me.”

Anya snapped her fingers in an attempt to draw the attention back to her.

“Not to be a bother, but since you are having three, and you’ve already exhausted your list of dead relatives and friends….”

Buffy smiled at the one Scoobie who had not only kept in touch in life, but in afterlife as well.

“You want us to name one of them after you, Anya?”

“Well…now that you mention it, that might be nice…especially since I’ve helped you out so much…I think I deserve something.”

Spike smiled and shook his head.

“Y’ haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

“Why change what’s perfect?”

With another snap of her fingers and puff of smoke, Anya was gone. Buffy frowned as she looked sullenly around the room.

“You know, I’ll never be able to get the smoke smell out of the drapes.”

--