Buffy clicked the radio on in an attempt to drown out all of the minute car driving sounds that she couldn’t help but notice. Tires crunching down constantly on loose pieces of asphalt, the honking horns of other drivers, the whirring engine, the sound of the car’s air conditioning, the medical terms heard a couple of days ago had begun to float through her head as well; it was all too much. She tried to get ahold of Robin Wood after she heard the news, for some reason she thought he might be able to tell her something that would make her feel better about all of this. His mother had been a slayer and he of all people would have known what she was going to be missing. But all she had was his Sunnydale number, and even though she hoped to whatever-power-controlled-the-universe he would answer, he didn’t. Which made sense, that contract had quite literally fallen through.
But just thinking of Robin Wood made Buffy realize something she hadn’t considered before. Being the child of a slayer had to be the crappiest life she could imagine bringing a child into. Robin’s mother had died on him when he was just a kid and it had turned him into a vengeful monster in a lot of ways. Robin Wood was a good man, she couldn’t deny it, but nobody else saw the way he’d tried to take his revenge out on Spike. He didn’t just want to kill him, he wanted to torture him, to bring him to his weakest point and exploit that fact. Buffy couldn’t understand it; the whole torture gig. If you wanted someone dead, you just killed them. It was as easy as that, and never that easy. Either way, it was monstrous the way Robin had tried to attack Spike. Buffy was all for a fair fight and she was certain that Robin could have fought and even killed Spike sans the cross covered walls.
And though Robin Wood had moved on from that person, he was forever etched in Buffy’s memory. No child of hers would become that way. But it seemed almost unavoidable. It takes the best type of person to forgive something that takes away that which you love. And what’s more beloved than a mother? Buffy understood that loss all too clearly. And she understood the hatred. If cancer had a corporeal incarnation, she wouldn’t hesitate to destroy the beast. But that was the problem: the lack of hesitation that hatred seemed to foster. It was nearly impossible to escape, and even her child was likely to fall prey to it.
And that’s when she’d realized that any child of hers, at least in at this juncture in her life, would be better off having not been born. If she loved her potential children, she wouldn’t bring them into a world where they would have to hate whatever inevitably killed their mother. Not when that thing could be an individual instead of a disease. It wouldn’t be fair and it would make monsters out of them. So this chemical pregnancy (Had the nurse said it was a really early miscarriage? She couldn’t remember…) had become some sort of blessing in disguise. Of course it certainly didn’t feel that way, somehow it still stung. It still welled up inside of her wanting to push tears from her eyes. It ached to burst from within her, this feeling, these unsaid words. She hadn’t told a soul.
So she texted Cameron, figuring now was as good a time as any. And then she drove, almost absentmindedly because she knew the way by heart. Her mind was screaming out. No, no, no. You know he’s going through some badness, Buffy. The time isn’t right. Remember what you heard he tried to do… But she had to tell someone, she needed the truth to be out. She wanted him to know, because he deserved to know. And then she found herself parked at Cameron’s place, her cheeks were stained with tears when she pulled down the sunblind’s mirror to make sure she looked at least a little presentable. Not that it really mattered, but when you’re unsure of so much, looking nice can really help. She didn’t bother texting or calling, he knew she was coming. She made her way to his front door and knocked gently, trying to keep herself composed. If he didn’t know she was upset, maybe he wouldn’t be either.