The Babysitters Club

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG

Archive: If you already have my stuff. If not, just ask.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters; Joss Whedon, ME and other rich folk do.

Spoilers: Up through Once More With Feeling. All bets are off after that.

Summary: Set after my short story, If Love Is Not. Spike and Buffy might have decided to date, but there are still plenty of bumps ahead, and not entirely of their own creation.

A/N: Like nearly every other American teenager, I baby-sat to earn money. I hated it. So it only makes sense that I'd put Dawn (and Buffy and Spike) through the same horror.

Dedication: To the wonderfully funny itmustbetuesday, who asked for a baby fic with a twist for her birthday. Well, there's a baby, and I think I managed the twist, too.

Buffy stared at the woman standing on her front porch. The stranger wasn't much older than she was, and she was carrying a diaper bag and a car seat, complete with a baby. Even for the Hellmouth, this was a first. "Can I help you?"

The woman gave her an uncertain smile. "Are you Dawn?"

Buffy frowned. "No, I'm Buffy. Dawn's my younger sister. Is there something I can do for you?"

The smile faltered. "Oh, I'm Rhoda. I arranged to have Dawn look after Clara this afternoon. My usual sitter wasn't able to look after her today. Janice gave me Dawn's name, and she said she'd be home."

"Oh!" Buffy said in surprise. Dawn hadn't mentioned anything about a baby-sitting gig, and she wasn't home from school yet. While Buffy would have been able to deal with a demon on the front porch, she wasn't sure what to do about the woman and her baby. "Dawn isn't home from school yet. Do you want to wait?"

The woman looked like she was about to burst into tears. "I can't be late," she said, a little desperately. "Janice said that Dawn was reliable, and—"

"Dawn is really reliable," Buffy assured her. "I have no idea what happened. I'm sure she's on her way." She paused, seeing the desperation on Rhoda's face. "I could take Clara until Dawn gets home."

Rhoda was clearly torn, and Buffy easily could understand that. At least Dawn had come recommended through a trusted source, but Buffy was a complete stranger. On the other hand, since Rhoda obviously needed to get to work, there didn't seem to be any other choice. Rhoda finally gulped and nodded. "Okay. Thank you, really. I just fed her, and she usually sleeps for a while after that. Her formula is in the diaper bag, and I wrote out the instructions for mixing it up for Dawn, just in case."

"Okay," Buffy said bravely. "I'll be sure to let Dawn know where those are when she gets home."

"Thank you," Rhoda repeated, and then gave Buffy a doubtful look. "Have you ever baby-sat before?"

"Sure I have," Buffy said quickly. "It's been awhile, but it's just like riding a bike, right?"

In retrospect, that probably was what jinxed her.

It should have been a simple job. After all, it was 3 o'clock when Rhoda dropped Clara off, and Dawn was usually home by 4 at the latest. Plus, Clara slept for the first half hour. If Dawn had come home at her usual time, it would have been a piece of cake.

What actually happened was that Clara woke up at 4 and started crying. Dawn was nowhere to be found, and she hadn't called. Buffy did everything she knew you were supposed to do with a crying baby. She checked the diaper—and that was just gross—so she changed it. Buffy walked her and pleaded with her and tried to stick the pacifier in her mouth. Clara just spat it out again.

Buffy had baby-sat once before, back when she lived in L.A. Her parents had decided that she needed to learn some responsibility, and so they had arranged to have her look after their friends' kids while they went out on a double date. The night had gone fairly well, and Buffy had a little extra cash at the end, but that had been the end of it. Her parents had been fighting with each other too much to pay attention to her, and she had been Chosen soon after.

At that point, what with her getting into fights and coming home late and burning down school gyms, no one was going to trust Buffy with their kids.

In theory, Buffy really liked kids. She had enjoyed the mandatory-volunteer trick-or-treating Snyder had signed her up for, right up until they'd all turned into their costumes. She hadn't minded hanging out with the little kids in the hospital when she had that nasty flu either.

That was the thing, though. Buffy liked kids. She had no clue what to do with babies. Clara was cute, and Buffy guessed she was about eight months old or so, but there wasn't much a baby could do.

And when something was wrong, all they could do was scream at you.

"What's all the racket?"

Buffy turned to look at Spike. "Please tell me you know something about babies."

Spike immediately started backing up. "Oh, no. I don't do babies."

"Spike, please," Buffy said. "We're dating, right? That means we're supposed to be sharing responsibilities."

Spike's eyebrow went straight up. "How the bloody hell did you come up with that theory?"

"Well, you said you wanted to be a part of my life," Buffy replied, thrusting Clara at him. "Please. I have to go to the bathroom."

Spike couldn't really say no to that. He took the baby from Buffy with surprising ease. "Go on with you then."

Buffy gave him a suspicious look. "Do I want to know why you know how to hold a baby?"

"Pretty sure you don't," Spike replied with a smirk.

Buffy grimaced and then shot upstairs to the bathroom. She hadn't been lying about that part, but she had really wanted to get away from the screaming baby. Buffy knew she probably could have put Clara down for a few minutes, but she felt too guilty to even try. Obviously, she was a very bad baby-sitter.

The weird thing about dating Spike—and consequently having him show up at random times—was that it wasn't weird. Buffy had been hesitating over their relationship for a hundred different reasons, most of which didn't appear to be applicable.

Spike was not a bad influence on Dawn, he didn't have sex on the brain all the time—well, not any more than she did anyway—and it wasn't strange to have him around. Spike was just there more often, and they kissed a lot.

Buffy viewed both Spike being around and kissing him as perks to their arrangement.

In fact, Spike was kind of refreshing in the boyfriend arena. He didn't mind patrolling with her, and he could be trusted to look after himself. He was happy doing nothing, or just sitting quietly, if that was what she wanted.

Of course, he could also be snarky, annoying, and just an all-around pain in the ass, but Buffy had known that for years.

Life was certainly never boring with Spike around.

Buffy was taking her time washing her hands when she heard Spike's roar from downstairs. "Bloody hell!"

She dried her hands quickly, and rushed downstairs. Spike was standing in the kitchen, holding Clara out at arm's length, white baby vomit dripping down the front of his duster.

Clara was giggling.

Buffy fought back a smile. "Is everything okay, Spike?"

"Does everything look okay?" he demanded. "Look what she did!"

Buffy couldn't resist teasing him just a little bit. "Oh, come on, Spike. It's just baby spit up. You've had demon goop all over that coat."

"Just baby spittle, huh?" Spike asked, an evil glint entering his eyes. He tucked a still-chortling Clara under one arm and wiped off the spittle, flicking it at her. When Buffy shrieked, he raised an eyebrow. "What's the matter, Buffy? It's just baby spit up. It's not like you haven't dealt with demon goop before."

Buffy wanted to smack him, but she couldn't very well do that while he was holding a baby. "Spike! You just wait until I get my hands on you!"

Spike grinned down at Clara. "Hear that, lamb? Slayer's gonna teach me a lesson."

"Do not make sexual innuendos around the baby, Spike!" Buffy said. "You're going to corrupt her."

"This little one's too young to understand what she's hearing," Spike replied. "And, besides, you're the one whose mind is in the gutter. What did you think I meant? You have something on your mind, Slayer?"

Buffy certainly did have something on her mind, but nothing was going to get done about it until after the baby was gone.

She heard the front door open. "Buffy?"

"Dawn! Get your butt in here right now!" Buffy yelled, fixing her sister with a glare once she entered the kitchen. "Did you forget something?"

Dawn stared at the sight in front of her: Spike, covered in baby vomit, holding Clara, and Buffy with her hands on her hips, delivering a death glare. Dawn wondered if Buffy realized how much she looked like Joyce in that moment. Dawn gulped. "Uh, hi guys."

"Well?"

"I'm really, really sorry?" Dawn hedged. "I completely forgot about it."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "You owe me."

"Spike—"

"I'm serious, Bit," he said, handing her the baby. "You're cleaning my coat."

Dawn took Clara, the protest dying on her lips when she saw the look on his face. "Fine."

"And I'm docking your pay," Buffy added. "You owe me half."

Her sister knew she had no grounds for protest on that one, not when Dawn had stuck Buffy with Clara for over an hour with no warning. "Okay," she sighed.

Spike stripped out of his coat, draping it over a chair. "Have fun," he said cheerfully, looking over at Buffy. "You ready to go, luv?"

Dawn suddenly realized just how big a faux pas she'd made. "You guys were going out tonight?"

Buffy saw her opportunity and took it. "Yes, we were going to go out. Now Spike's going to have to change, and we'll probably miss our dinner reservations."

Dawn laughed. "Yeah, right. Like you guys would make reservations."

"As a matter of fact, I did make reservations," Spike said smoothly. "This marks our one month anniversary."

Dawn still wasn't convinced, but she had the feeling that she was going to have a lot of groveling to do. "You'd better hurry if you don't want to miss it, then."

They both hurried, although it was more because Clara had started fussing again, and neither one of them wanted to be around for round two of the crying. "You do realize that we're going to have to go out to dinner now, don't you?" Buffy asked. "Dawn's going to wonder if I don't bring home leftovers."

"Who says I hadn't planned on taking you out?" Spike asked, sounding a little hurt. "Wasn't lying about that."

Buffy blinked, realizing that Spike had been right. It was a month since they'd started going out. It had been right before Valentine's Day. "You really made reservations?"

"Well, no, but I wanted to see if you'd go out to dinner with me," Spike replied. "We don't have to, but—"

"Free food?" Buffy asked. "I think I can be persuaded."

He gave her one of those wry half-grins that Buffy was coming to love. "Right. Well, I'm still going to have to change my shirt."

~~~~~

Buffy watched Spike across the table, unable to shake the sense of weirdness. This whole evening had been so—normal.

When did normal start to feel weird?

"You're starin' again," Spike accused her.

"Sorry," Buffy replied, looking down at her plate. Spike had taken her to one of the nicer restaurants in Sunnydale, although not so fancy that either of them looked out of place in their jeans. The food had been good, and the company had been nice, too. Buffy found it so easy to be with Spike.

He toyed with his own fork. "Is something wrong, Buffy?"

It was the hesitancy in his voice that got to her. The more Buffy got to know Spike, the more she realized that she didn't know him at all.

But she liked him. A lot.

"No!" she hastened to assure him. "This is really nice. It's just that tonight has been so—" Buffy struggled to find the right word. "Normal."

Spike frowned. "And that's a bad thing?"

"No, but it's weird." At his raised eyebrow, Buffy explained, "You know, with the baby and the delinquent little sister, and dinner out. I mean, anybody could have had an afternoon like mine."

Spike gave her a smirk. "But not everyone has a devilishly handsome vampire for a boyfriend."

"No, you're definitely one of a kind." Buffy hesitated a moment. "You know, I was thinking maybe we could go back to your place this evening."

Spike leaned back in his chair. Although things had gotten pretty hot and heavy between the two of them, this was the first time Buffy had actually suggested that she stay at his crypt. "Is that right?"

"Well, Dawn's going to be baby-sitting for a while still," Buffy pointed out. "So my place is out. And I still owe you for earlier."

"Owe me?" Spike asked. "What about you? You were the one that had me hold the kid."

Buffy narrowed her eyes, and then acquiesced. "Fine. We'll call it even."

"You ever think you might want one?"

Buffy frowned. "What? A kid?"

Spike shrugged. "Yeah. A normal life, you know, all of that."

"No," she said firmly.

"No?"

She shook her head. "Maybe I might have thought that's what I wanted, but not anymore." Buffy smiled at him. "Besides, it's not like being the Slayer and being a parent is at all compatible." She paused before adding, "Especially if your boyfriend is a vampire."

Buffy knew when Spike got her meaning. It was a promise of something permanent, a promise that she hadn't been able to give him up until now. A certain wonder entered his eyes, and he smiled at her. "So, my place?"

"Your place." Buffy couldn't help but think that if weird was going to be normal, this was the way to go. Watching Spike call for the check, she smiled. This was definitely the way to go.