Night time in New York city. The witching hour. The year is 1973 and, just like now, the Big Apple never sleeps. A woman clenches her teeth, eyes levelled at her attacker. He has her by the throat and is dangling the woman off the side of a rooftop. “You’re weak for a Slayer.”

He pulls her in from the edge and throws her against a beam supporting a water tower. “This is your pathetic rite of passage, isn’t it? Did you Watcher pump you full of drugs? I can smell the sedatives and the blood of someone else.” He holds her up, sniffs her slightly longer, deeper. He glares at her, his eyes squinting, pupils darting. “You’re with child.” He grins.

The Slayer looks at him. “And you’re dead,” she retorts. She struggles to find a grip on the beam, unable to find anything to use as a weapon. “You can’t kill me,” the vampire laughs. “But I can kill both of…”

Before the vampire can say or do anything else, the woman uses her right leg to balance her weight on the beam, using the leverage to drive her other foot forward at the vamp. As he looks, she pulls a piece of wood from the beam and plunges it into the creature’s chest. He explodes into dust in the cool night air, until the only sound she can hear are the city’s citizens of the night.

As she recovers, hands rubbing her sore throat, a man in a suit comes racing from a rooftop access door, racing towards her! In an English accent, the flustered man, out of breath, reaches the Slayer’s side. “I told the Council they were insane!” He yells at her.

The Slayer doesn’t look at him. “I survived,” she coldly states. The man helps her to her feet. His name is Bernard Crowley, a member of the Watcher’s Council of England. She is his Slayer, Nikki Wood. This is her Cruciamentum, a test of her Slayer abilities that all of Chosen Ones are subjected to: a brutal challenge where the girl must overcome the odds without her Slayer strength. He condemns the Council for putting Nikki through hers at this time, not when she herself is in such a delicate position. He glances at her stomach. She’s not showing yet. Nikki tells him that all Slayers go through the Cruciamentum when they turn 18 and she has no desire to shirk the mission because ‘her life got in the way’.

Bernard is still concerned, but impressed nonetheless. “How did you manage this without your strength?” he inquires. Nikki looks up at him, cleaning her wounds. “He threatened my baby,” she tells him. When he asks her what she intends to do about the child, Nikki tells her mentor that she has no idea. Bernard puts his arm around her reassuringly. “In the meantime,” he begins, as they leave the rooftop, “will you at least tell me who the father is?”

Now. In Buffy‘s bedroom, she’s sitting on her bed, holding the pillow close to her chest. Dawn has just asked her the same question Crowley asked Nikki years ago. Buffy tells Dawn, with more than a hint of shame and embarrassment, that she has no idea. She knows it happened the night of the house-warming party.

Dawn thinks back. She remembers the cops trying to end the party because it was too crowded. “Maybe you didn’t get pregnant that night,” Dawn suggests, but Buffy tells her that she hasn’t really had time for any non-Slaying action. And she did black out at the party. The embarrassment comes through again.

Dawn reassures her that they’ve all made mistakes: heck, if it wasn’t for alcohol, she herself wouldn’t have gone from giant to centaur to doll in the last few years! Dawn suggests a list of people she was alone with, people of the male persuasion, but Buffy’s answers don’t help at all: “Riley, who’s married. Andrew, whose name I’m not sure why I’m saying. Root, who doesn’t shower. Tumble, who showers infrequently. The shut-in neighbour who’s name I can’t remember. And then there’s Spike.”

Dawn looks at her. “Is a vamp daddy even possible?” Buffy doesn’t think so, but since the Seed was destroyed, the whole vampire rule book is being rewritten. And those are only the guys she knew at the party, she finishes, looking ashamed.

Dawn puts her arms around her. Buffy thinks that whomever the father, she’s on her own, although Dawn insists she has her and Xander. Buffy asks Dawn if she thinks Willow is in the same time zone as them, but Dawn didn’t get a response the day before. Buffy decides not to tell anyone else about the pregnancy: It’s better this way. Dawn holds up a bag. “I brought pyjamas, highly-processed snack food and I’m planning on skipping all my classes until we figure out a plan of attack.” Buffy notes that Dawn seems more enthusiastic about the skipping classes part, and appreciates what her sister is doing, but first she has to make a phone call.

In downtown San Francisco, an impatient Detective Robert Dowling is in his car, coffee in hand. He’s on his cell phone, trying to leave a message. He’s clearly irritated slightly. “Spike, it’s Detective Dowling. Buffy said you’d meet me at the…”

The detective loses his words as Spike’s interdimensional transport appears in the sky above him, slowly approaching the ground. A bright light shines, dazzling Dowling and he watches in shock as the ship then returns to it’s position in the sky, soon out of sight.

Spike opens the passenger side door of his squad car. “Right here mate. We going to do this ride-along or not?”

Dowling is open-mouthed, not knowing what he’s just witnessed. He looks over at where the ship was a moment ago. “There’s a lot I don’t know about vampires.” Spike catches his gaze. “Oh, we don’t all have spaceships,” he tells a stunned Dowling.

1973. The current home base of Nikki Wood. Bernard is stitching up her wounds. He suggests that, perhaps, Nikki’s unborn child could be raised by it’s father. Nikki looks at him. “Crowley, you know what I do. You know I see the bad stuff. When I blow off steam, I don’t always collect names.”

Bernard doesn’t respond to this, but does tell her that if she continues with this course of action, she is only going to hurt the child. He isn’t trying to be cruel, far from it, Nikki can tell. He’s just being practical.

She considers her Watcher’s words as she approaches a window and looks out onto the streets of Manhattan. “You saw what I did today when that vamp threatened my baby. I dug down deep and fought back. The baby could be my reason to fight.” She holds her hands to her stomach, cradling the unseen future. Bernard slowly approaches her at the window. “If you put that burden on a child Nikki, he will blame you for the rest of his life.”

A restaurant, the present day. Buffy is sat at a table, coffee mug in front of her. “If you want an easy answer,” her dinner date tells her honestly, “you won’t get it from me.”

Robin Wood looks at Buffy. He’ll help, but he’s not sure how he can. Buffy has asked him a question, and Robin is unsure how to phrase his answer: “What’s it like to grow up with a Slayer as a mother?”

Robin looks down for a moment, inhales deeply and looks at her. “I learned about demons and vampires when most kids still believed in the tooth fairy. I was closer to her Watcher than I was to my own mother. If I was lucky, she’d take me to patrol with her, because the worse part was lying in bed and waiting for her to come home.” He puts his hands together on the table to steady himself, the conversation more difficult for him that he expected. “It always took longer than she said. Longer than I thought it would. But she always came home until one night she didn’t.” He swallows hard. Buffy looks at him, but doesn’t move to take his hand. “The night Spike killed her.”

There’s silence for a moment. Buffy looks down into her untouched coffee. “I guess it’s obvious what I should do.” Robin surprises her by telling her that he doesn’t think it is. Buffy is stunned: he has, after all, just told her how much he resents his childhood. Robin nods, but tells Buffy that he’s only here because Nikki decided to have him. “I think you should consider having the baby.”

1973. Nikki is surrounded, by at least five vampires. She fights well, taking two out with her stakes fairly quickly. A third manages to get past and pins her, ready to feed, but he’s dusted by Crowley, who’s followed his charge. “Who says Slayers are the only ones good with a stake?” he says, slight swashbuckling grin on his face.

The other two vampires charge towards them as Nikki shouts a warning. She takes one out as he runs into her and Crowley, luck on his side, falls awkwardly enough to take the vampire to the ground with him, impaled quite by accident on Bernard’s weapon.

He wastes no time in getting up and racing to Nikki’s side. He helps her up and asks if she’s okay. Nikki points out that she’s fine, but he seems to be doing more than just watching. “I didn’t think you ever came outside to play with sharp, pointy objects,” Nikki questions, tone dripping with friendly sarcasm. Bernard however, is in no mood for levity. “You didn’t leave me any choice. Why are you patrolling?” Nikki glares at him. “It’s the mission, Crowley.”

He shakes his head. “Why do you think I rented you a cabin upstate? You’re supposed to stay there until the baby’s born.” Nikki wonders what the Council have to say to that, but Bernard tells her that they don’t know. He’s planning to cover for her until the child is born, until she decides to give her son to a family who can provide him with a better life.

In the present day, Spike is less than enthused about having to wear a bullet-proof ‘straitjacket’ whilst on patrol with Dowling. The detective tells him that it’s procedure. He’s on the edge of a rooftop, stake in hand, looking down, perhaps enjoying himself a bit too much. Spike joins him, pulling his cigarettes out of his coat and lighting up.

“Lesson one: Vampires are already dead.” Dowling looks at Spike and rolls his eyes. “Let’s skip to the part where you teach me how to make them go up in dust.” He excitedly asks if there’s a nest nearby. Spike tells him that he is not ready for a nest – in fact, he’s sodding lucky to have made it this far, considering the last nest he was at was empty! Dowling asks if they’re supposed to just wait for a zompire to show up, and Spike assures him that, before long, something nasty will come along looking for it’s next lunch.

Dowling leans against his car, settling in for a wait. “Wanna tell me how you became friends with a Slayer?” he asks Spike, who simply tells him that it’s a long story and it’s not what tonight is about. Dowling disagrees: he’s here tonight to learn everything he can about vampires and he figures that an alliance between the Slayers and the vampires sounds like a good place to start. Spike sighs. “All right if you have to know.”

He proceeds to tell Dowling the cliff notes version of his relationship with the Slayer: from his attempts to kill her, the chip, his soul, even the BuffyBot, but ultimately they went their separate ways, mostly on account of the fact that he burned up as a big pile of ash to save the world! Dowling stares at Spike in disbelief: he thinks another stake-out will be needed.

He asks Spike if he and Buffy are together anymore. Spike says that they’re not, but Buffy tends to come to him when she needs a darkness. He asks Dowling if he likes Buffy: “Cause’s there’s nothing I’d like to see more than to see her with someone like you. Clueless about the things that go bump in the night.”

Dowling shakes his head slightly. Buffy shouldn’t date a cop, he thinks. “I see a lot of bad stuff. It’s hard not to bring that home.” Spike scoffs. After everything she’s been through, Buffy can handle police matters. She can handle anything: it’s Dowling he’d be worried about. He grins.

Leaving the restaurant, Robin and Buffy are still talking. “Why didn’t Nikki give you up for adoption?” Robin remembers Crowley telling him that before he was born, his mom put walls up with everyone she came into contact with. Buffy can relate.

“Growing up,” Robin continues, “I never saw any guy stick around for more than a couple weeks. But here I was, someone who was already on the inside of her wall.” Buffy thinks she understands. “It would have killed Nikki to walk way from you.”

Robin stops her. “That’s the thing, Buffy. She didn’t have to walk away from me. She could have walked away from Slaying.”

A hospital room. The sun is shining outside. In the hospital bed, Nikki stares down at her baby son, Crowley watching on, proudly. “I named him Robin,” she tells Bernard. She looks up at him, sadness in her eyes, her bottom lip beginning to quiver. “I don’t want to go back.”

Bernard assures her that she doesn’t have to: he will square it with the Council. She has done three years as a Slayer when most don’t live that long. “You can walk away. And no one will blame you. Not if you do it for him.”

Nikki is amazed, her eyes wide. “Really?” Bernard hands her a brown envelope. Inside there are passports and tickets. “When the doctors let you out of here, don’t come back. Just leave. Be a family.” Nikki looks down at her son, smile on her face. “Do you hear that, Robin? We’re going to be a family.”

Buffy asks Robin why, if she had an out, did Nikki not take it? Robin tells her that for a while they lived around the world, travelled, but ultimately, they ended up back in New York, in the one place they shouldn’t have been. And then the night came, and Robin waited and Nikki never came home.

“She was Chosen, Buffy, like you. No matter where she went, no matter how much she wanted to be with me, she wasn’t strong enough to ignore it. She had to be a Slayer.”

Buffy doesn’t get his point. “Where’s the part of the story that makes you think I should have a kid?” Robin turns to her. “You’ve done things my mom never could. You’ve saved the world more times than I can count. And you raised your sister while doing it. Then you led an army of Slayers. That’s why I think you can have this baby.”

He opens the door to a cab, helps Buffy inside. “The difference between you and Nikki is when things get tough, you let people help. So if you decide to have that baby, don’t do it by yourself.”

Buffy smiles at her old boss. “Don’t worry,” she says before the cab pulls off. “I won’t.”

Elsewhere in San Francisco Bay, Spike and Dowling are still waiting when Spike’s cell phone buzzes. He has a message from Buffy: she needs him. Dowling gets in the car, asking what the situation is, but Spike tells him it’s less action and more talking. Dowling grins. “You going to tell her how you really feel about her or are you going to bottle it up until Buffy’s too old to care?”

Spike looks at him. “What are you on about?” Dowling grins. “You aren’t over her.” Spike scoffs. He’s been over Buffy since the night the house fell on them! Dowling chuckles at him. He’s a cop and he knows how to read people. “The only reason you won’t tell her how you feel is because you’re afraid you might hurt her. But like you said, Buffy’s a big girl. She can handle whatever you throw at her.”

Later, Buffy sits in the courtyard outside her apartment, her feet hanging into the pool. Spike makes no noise as he approaches her, but that’s how she knows he’s there. She asks him how the ride-along went. Spike says that Dowling’s a good bloke. A bit nosy. But regardless, Spike has something he would like to tell her.

Before he can say anything, Buffy asks if she can start. “I need to say it before the words disappear.” She tells Spike that she wants to do something, and it’s going to be difficult and hard. And she was hoping Spike could help her.

“Anything for you, luv,” he says.

“Spike,” Buffy begins, looking away from him and down into the pool. “I’m going to have an abortion.” Spike looks up. “You’re pregnant?” Buffy either doesn’t hear him or ignores him, carrying on.

“Robin told me how Nikki tried to run away from Slaying after he was born. And I thought I could do what she couldn’t. I thought I had everything that Nikki didn’t. Willow, Dawn, Xander, you… I was ready to ask you to run away with me.”

She moves closer to him on the edge of the water. “‘I’m barely able to hold onto a job. I live with roommates who are about to kick me out. And I can’t even hold my alcohol well enough to remember who got me pregnant.”

She says that she can handle the Slayer stuff, but everything else? That she’s not ready for. She looks at Spike, tears in her eyes. “It’s not the Slaying. It’s me.”

“Will you come with me, when I do this?” she asks Spike, without looking at him. Spike gets up from where he was crouched and extends his hand to Buffy. “Yeah,” he says, as Buffy places her hand in his.