ITLE: The Family Business
AUTHOR: JK Philips
RATING: PG (some swearing)
DISTRIBUTION: Not sure what all sites are out there, but if you want it, you can have it.
Just please email me your URL, so I know where my story is going. And of course, give
proper credit.
SUMMARY: After the events of The Ticking Clock, Buffy and Giles are still looking for their
daughter. Can they save her from a terrible fate?
SPOILERS: Everything up to “The Gift”
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.
EMAIL: jkphilips@hotmail.com. Would love feedback. This is only my third fanfic.
Well, technically my first if you want to lump Death Brings Clarity, The Ticking Clock,
and this together as one trilogy.
MY WEBSITE: (for archivers) www.geocities.com/jkphilips_fiction/

Part 4: Truth and Consequences

Buffy sat at the dining room table. She hadn’t changed out of her officer’s uniform after coming home from work. She wanted to look like a cop, because Dawn was sitting in a chair across from her and Dawn was in so much trouble.

“Okay. I’m calm. I’m collected. I even got a little sleep. I wanted to wait for Giles, but I don’t know where he and Alex went. You know what? Let’s start without him.” Buffy took a deep breath and placed her hands neatly on the table. She would stay calm. She would stay calm no matter what. “First things first: you can’t see Spike anymore.”

“That’s so unfair!” Dawn jumped up from her seat and then reluctantly sat back down when she caught Buffy’s glare.

“Life’s not fair, kiddo. Time you learned that. If life were fair, I wouldn’t be having to tell my kid sister she can’t date a vampire.”

Dawn crossed her arms and scowled. “So you can date Angel, but I can’t date Spike?”

“Angel had a soul, and Spike does not. And no, before you say another word, having a chip in his skull is not the same thing as having a soul.” Buffy sighed, tired of explaining it. “And let’s not forget: Spike was in love with me. He couldn’t have me... so what? He moved on to you? Dawn, do you really want to be second choice? You deserve so much better than that.”

“God! Ego much?” Dawn jumped up again, and this time she didn’t sit back down when Buffy glared at her, but instead began pacing across the length of the dining room. “Does everything have to be about you? Is it really so hard to believe that Spike could want me, that he could love me?”

“Yes!” Buffy cried, now bolting out of her seat as well and closing the distance between them. “Tell me, Dawn, what do you two really have in common? Let’s see. You go to high school. He sleeps in a cemetery all day.” She tilted her hands back and forth as if balancing their two worlds on a scale. “You have a future and a long life to look forward to. He died over a hundred years ago. You’ve never killed anyone. He used to do it every night.  Please tell me, what’s the attraction? Is this just a rebellion thing? Are you doing this just to tick us off? ’Cause it’s really working. Or is there really something more to this than ‘the young innocent girl is drawn to the dark and dangerous brooding figure in the shadows?’”

Dawn shifted on her feet and glanced off to the side. “Spike doesn’t brood. Angel was the mopey brooder. And for your information, there is a whole lot more to it. Spike treats me like a grownup, always has, unlike some people. And he’s nice to me, and way more mature than any of the other boys at school.”

“I should hope so,” Buffy scoffed. “He’s like ten times their age.”

“And... and... we’re both artists.”

“Artists?” She rolled her eyes. “What’s Spike do? Draw rude pictures on the mud floor of his crypt?”

Dawn bristled and met her sister’s eyes. “He’s a poet. He was a poet before he died, and he still looks at the world with a poet’s eyes.”

“You’ll have to do better than that. As a poet, he stank. They called him ‘William the Bloody’ ’cause his poetry was so bloody awful. Spike told me that himself.”

“Yeah,” Dawn protested, “but he’s had over a hundred years to practice and get better. You should read the stuff he writes now. He’s got this whole tough guy exterior, but inside-”

“-he’s just a cold blooded killer?”

“Why won’t you believe that he’s changed? Why can’t you accept that I love him?”

Buffy was about to give her a whole list of reasons, but the front door opened before she had a chance. Giles and Alex walked into the house. She had never been more happy to see him. Maybe her watcher could talk some sense into Dawn.

“Giles!”

But Giles looked as if someone had just died. And Alex, although lifting up his arms for a welcome hug, wasn’t dispensing his usual enthusiastic greeting. Her watcher’s next words only increased her dread.

“Dawn, will you take Alex to the park for a little while? I need to talk to Buffy alone.”

Buffy gave her son a hug hello, and then a kiss goodbye before handing him over to her sister, who seemed very eager to escape the line of fire. Buffy’s eyes never left her husband. She heard the door shut behind them and waited. And waited. Giles looked distinctly uncomfortable, never meeting her eyes, just standing there, shifting his weight and adjusting his hands in his pockets.

“Oh God,” she whispered. “Who died?”

“No one’s died,” he answered. But he still couldn’t look at her.

“But things are definitely not of the good?” Only silence answered her. “C’mon, Giles, you’re freaking me out, here.”

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” he murmured. He took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, at the chandelier, at the table, with a longer glance towards the corner liquor cabinet. He couldn’t look at her. The last time he’d had this problem had been her eighteenth birthday with the Test, the Cruisa-something, when he’d been shooting her full of slayer kryptonite on the sly. Giles could lie like a politician to strangers, but with those he loved, with things that mattered, he got all stuttery and was about as believable as Alex trying to explain how the cookie jar had toppled off the counter all on its own.

“Giles!”

He drew something from his jacket pocket, a piece of paper or a photo or something, and played with it between his fingers as he spoke. “I’m just trying to figure out a way to tell you something and... and have you not hate me when I’ve finished.”

She frowned as she studied him. “Oh, Giles, I could never hate you.”

He chuckled darkly. “Don’t be so sure about that.” And then he handed her the paper between his fingers.

She gasped as she took it. She knew from the first what it was. It was a photograph of a little girl. Their little girl. Her hands started to shake, and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s her,” she whispered reverently. “Oh God, she’s so beautiful.”

“Yes, she is,” he agreed. “Her name is Robin. She’s... she’s happy. She has two parents who love her and... and a pink room with a canopy bed and all the trimmings. A big backyard and a swing set beside a sandbox and a tricycle and... and she’s frankly spoiled rotten.”

Buffy’s eyes darted up to meet his. He was looking at her finally, his green eyes sad and haunted. She knew now where his reluctance and his guilt came from. “You saw her? You went to see her, and you didn’t tell me?”

He swallowed hard. “Buffy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for it to happen like this.”

He stepped forward and reached out one hand hesitantly towards her. In the end, he couldn’t touch her, and his arm dropped back to his side. His eyes slid to the floor. He took a few steadying breaths, his chin moving without words. It was the library all over again, his confession of his betrayal of her after the Test and the same anger filling her heart. Her words to him on that occasion echoed in her head. If you touch me, I'll kill you.

She focused on him, her Watcher, her husband, the picture still clutched in her hand. “You went to see her, and you didn’t tell me? That’s where you and Alex went today, isn’t it? You went to see her without me?”

“It all happened so fast.” His words were calm, carefully chosen. “It was never my intention to go without you. I meant only to see Angel, to determine if he had really found our daughter. I just didn’t want to get your hopes up only to disappoint you again.”

She nodded absently, tears spilling down her cheeks. She focused on the picture in her hands. They had found their daughter. That was all that was important right now. “When can we bring her home?”

His answer was so soft, and she certainly couldn’t have heard him right. “We can’t.”

“When?” she asked again, her gaze alternating between him and the photo in her hands.

He closed his eyes as he repeated himself. “Buffy, we can’t.”

“What?” She took two steps back. Her body was trembling now, her tears falling freely, the picture desperately clutched in her hand as an anchor, as the proof that her daughter was close and the years of searching were finally over.

He stepped towards her, and she stepped back. He made no more attempt to come closer. He made no effort to meet her eyes. He removed his glasses and polished them as he spoke, his voice calm and collected, as if this were a lecture on a new demon threat or an obscure prophecy, not an explanation of why they could not bring their daughter home.

“Robin is a potential slayer. The Council will allow us to reclaim her on the condition of her slayer’s training. Travers was there already, and he took me to see her. She was so happy, so vibrant and loved. How could I take that from her and give her a life of demons and fighting and death?”

Buffy focused on the picture in her hands. Her tears were falling on the glossy paper, and she wiped them away quickly before they could mark the photo. Her daughter looked so much like her. She had often wondered what that was like. There was so little of her in Alex and so much of Giles. Now to see this child who could easily be a smaller version of herself made her heart swell until it felt like it could burst.

She sniffed back her tears and tried to reason with Giles. “She may not become the Slayer, and even if she does... Well, I’m the Slayer, and my life hasn’t been so horrible. I had a mom and a sister and a dad sometimes. And I had ice-skating and cheerleading and school dances. So what if she’s a potential slayer? I just want to bring her home.” Her voice broke on the last word, and she started sobbing. She felt his hand gently grip her shoulder, trying to draw her into his comforting arms, but she stood firmly apart from him.

“Buffy, you had all of those things because no one knew you were a potential slayer. You were not found until you were Called, and so you escaped a slayer’s training. Even after, neither Merrick nor I trained you as a conventional Watcher would. We had to adapt to you, to allow you freedom and a life of your own. Remember Kendra?”

Buffy snorted slightly with a soggy laugh. “She named her stake ‘Mr. Pointy.’”

Giles nodded and smiled at the memory as well. “Because she had none of the typical accoutrements of childhood. No toys or stuffed animals. No friends. She trained for as long as she could remember, and she lived for that one purpose alone: to be the Slayer. She followed the Slayer’s Handbook and obeyed her Watcher in all things.”

Buffy giggled slightly again, and wiped her tears on the cuff of her uniform.

“Yes, something I had also expected from you right up until I actually met you. Kendra was the Council’s ideal slayer. In the end, what did it get her? She barely lasted a year.” He took a deep breath and tilted her head up with a finger under her chin. “I couldn’t condemn Robin to that kind of a life, and the Council will only allow the adoption to be overturned on that condition. So I told Travers that she should stay with her adoptive parents.”

Buffy’s expression darkened, and her face twisted with rage. She knocked his hand out from beneath her chin. “What right did you have?” She shoved him backwards roughly. “What right did you have to decide that all on your own?” She clutched her head between her hands, her tears flowing freely once more. She couldn’t remember being this angry, not even during the Test. She wanted to scream it at him: “She’s my daughter, too!”

“I know that. God help me, I know that, but there was no time for discussion.”

She turned from him, spinning in a slow circle. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She pressed her daughter’s photo against her chest, and then slipped it into her front pocket. She faced her watcher again. This betrayal hurt worse than the other, because this time he had chosen it. She closed the distance between them and grabbed him by the front of his jacket, pushing him backwards until he hit the wall. She wanted to shake him, to hit him, but she held herself in check.

“You gave away our child?” she asked through her wrenching sobs. “How could you?”

Giles shoved back, his own voice filled with pain. “You think it was easy for me? You think I didn’t want to bring her home? God, Buffy, you think I wanted any of this? Leaving her there was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Harder even than putting you in the ground. But it was what was best for her. I did it because I love her enough to let her go. I wish you could have come with me. I wish we could have discussed it. But I stand by my decision.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. She had never imagined that she could actually hate him. “Your decision. Fine. Stand by your decision,” she spat bitterly. “Just don’t expect me to stand beside you.” She pushed past him and was striding out the door just as fast as her legs could carry her.

He followed her as far as the front porch, informing her calmly, “He won’t tell you where she is. None of them will. I asked them not to.”

She glared at him as she climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. It was hard to tear out of the driveway like a bat out of hell when you were driving a nice family sized minivan. Especially when it made beeping sounds as you backed up. Buffy gritted her teeth, wishing she had brought her squad car home from work.

She wasn’t sure where she was driving to. Giles was right. Angel wouldn’t tell her where Robin was. Even when they had been dating, Angel had had an irritating habit of deferring to Giles over her. They had both thought it was their job to protect her. She was a grown woman now; she didn’t need their protection; and she was getting real tired of their chauvinist attitudes. All she wanted was her daughter back.

The road blurred with her tears.

***

Giles paced the living room as he waited for Buffy to return. What would he say to her when she did come home? She hated him, and he could hardly blame her. He hated himself. The Council had him by the balls for as long as they had those tapes. And that was his fault too. How could he have been stupid enough to let the Council’s own operatives do the job on Longsworth and Sulla? And he had opened his big mouth about Ben too. Wasn’t that how it always happened in the movies? The killer was never caught until he bragged to someone about his deed.

Finally, he could stay in the house no longer. The walls were closing in on him. He grabbed his keys and left, walking through the neighborhood with such a cloud of gloom surrounding him that people gave him a wide berth. He passed through the park, but Dawn and Alex were not there. They must have returned home. He backtracked, and sure enough Dawn was sitting in the living room, but Alex was nowhere to be seen.

“Buffy came to the park, took Alex, and left,” Dawn informed him before he could ask. “So you’re in the doghouse now too? Join the club. At least she seems to have forgotten about me and Spike for the time being.” She frowned. “You’re not going to start in on me about that, are you?”

Giles settled into the chair beside his desk. At least Dawn didn’t hate him. Then again, she probably didn’t know what he had done. “That is the last thing on my mind at the moment.”

“Good,” she answered. “Can he come over then?”

“No,” he said without hesitation.

“Can I go see him?”

“No.”

Dawn scowled. “You know, you should suck up to me a little bit more. I can get you off my sister’s shit list.”

Giles sighed, tossed his glasses on the desk, and rubbed his weary eyes. “Don’t swear, Dawn. It doesn’t suit you. And I rather think there is very little you could do that would get me off your sister’s ‘shit list,’ as you so delicately put it.”

“I don’t know,” Dawn hedged. “What if I told her that Spike asked me to marry him, and he was going to live with me in LA after I graduated, and I was going to be an actress and not go to college?”

Giles studied her for a moment. “Is any of that true?”

Dawn shrugged noncommittally. “What if I told her that?”

He watched her with narrowed eyes. “I daresay that would take an enormous amount of heat off of me and place it directly on you.” He stood and crossed to the couch, standing just in front of her. “Is any of it true?”

She wouldn’t look up at him. She shrugged again and picked at a snag on her pant leg. “Maybe all of it?”

His jaw clenched. It was Angel all over again. Except this time he wasn’t about to stand by and say nothing as some undead creature of the night kept a beautiful young girl from living the full and happy life she so richly deserved. Angel, at least, had the decency to realize that he couldn’t be what Buffy needed, but Giles doubted that Spike would ever be so noble. Dawn had a chance at a normal life: college and friends and a career. She had a chance to get out of Sunnydale, away from the Hellmouth and demons and fighting and death. She had a chance at love and children and the American dream. He was going to make sure that she got that chance, that she got the chance to find a man who could share a life with her and give her children and walk in the sun and grow old with her. Spike wasn’t going to steal that from her. Not while Giles still had breath in his body.

He turned and aimed for the front door.

“Where are you going?” Dawn asked in alarm.

Giles paused at the threshold. “To have a chat with William the Bloody.” He slammed the door behind him. “William the Bloody-cradle-robbing-soulless-traitorous-miserable-excuse-for-a-vampire,” he muttered to himself. The idea of giving Spike a good thrashing lifted his spirits somewhat.

***

“Auntie Wiwo!” Alex squealed, bouncing in his mother’s arms. Willow smiled softly at him, and he reached for her. She took him in her arms, and he gave her an enthusiastic hug and a sloppy kiss. Aunt Willow was always good at making things better.

“Buffy?”

His mother was still crying and tentatively stepped around them to enter the apartment. She had been crying ever since she picked him up at the park, and nothing he did seemed to make her feel any better.

“Mommy sad,” he whispered in Willow’s ear.

She nodded and closed the door, following Buffy into the living room. “Hey, Alex,” she said as she set him down. “I bet you don’t remember what I’ve got in my toy box?”

A shy grin slipped over his face. “Legos!” And he dashed over to the chest in the corner to pull them out. Aunt Willow had the best collection of Legos, second only to Uncle Xander’s collection of matchbox cars. He began building a big robot with four arms and five legs, glancing up occasionally to watch his mother cry in Willow’s arms. She was sad because of Robin, just like Daddy. But Alex wasn’t sad, because he saw her sometimes in his dreams, and he knew she would come live with them.

He walked over to the couch with his Lego creation, proudly holding it up between the two women for them to see.

“It’s nice, honey,” his mother said softly, wiping away her tears.

Willow ruffled his hair playfully and asked him a few questions about what his robot could do. He climbed into her lap and excitedly pointed out to her the claws on its hands so it could pick stuff up and its five legs so it wouldn’t fall over. She set the robot on the floor, and waved her hand over it. It began to walk on its own and swing its hands through the air.

Alex clapped gleefully. Aunt Willow was certainly much happier than the last time he’d seen her. And she was doing magic again. Maybe she had stopped being so sad about Aunt Tara going to heaven.

But his mother was frowning. “When did you start doing that again?”

The young witch shrugged. “You guys have been nagging me to get a life, so I did. I made some friends, and we do magic. Things are actually getting much better.”

But Alex was tugging on his Auntie’s arm. He pointed at the robot. “Make fly. Pwease.”

She gave him a wink. “You’ll have to build me something with wings first.”

So he quickly tumbled out of her lap, grabbed the robot, and dashed over to the Legos. He started building an airplane, and then thought maybe he would like a flying dinosaur better. Terry-something his father had called it. His mother and Aunt Willow continued to talk, but he never glanced up. He was focused too intently on building his dinosaur. When he had finished, he ran over as fast as his legs could carry him, stumbling once and holding his prize up so it wouldn’t break. He thrust the dinosaur into his Auntie’s lap and demanded again, “Fly!”

She laughed and held the winged Lego blob up into the air above her head. Alex was eye-level with her stomach, so he noticed it right away when she raised her arms and her shirt slid up slightly. She had something painted on her stomach. He lost interest in the Terry-dino that was now flying through the apartment. He had gotten his face painted at the fair once, and he wanted to see what Willow had on her tummy. His hand darted forward to lift her shirt. Her hand came down to stop him, but his mother had already noticed.

“Willow, what’s that?”

She shrugged and batted the boy’s hands away when he plucked at the hem of her top once more. “It’s nothing, Buffy.”

But Alex wanted to see what it was. He had gotten a red fire truck painted on his cheek, because Uncle Xander had suggested it. And then on the other cheek, he had gotten a bunny, because Aunt Willow had said that Aunt Anya would like it. And Dawnie had thought he should get a butterfly, so he had the lady paint one on his hand. Anya hadn’t liked the bunny, but he wouldn’t wash it off, so she had thought he should get a clown painted on him somewhere, as she glared at Xander. So he had the lady paint a clown on his other hand. And then he had liked the picture of the lion, so he asked her to paint that real big on his forehead. She even gave him a black nose and whiskers just for the fun of it.

They had all gone to meet Mommy and Daddy by the Ferris wheel after, and he had been real excited to show them all his artwork, but his parents were less than enthused about the amount of face and hand painting he had gotten done in their absence. They hadn’t left him alone with his Aunts and Uncle for the rest of the day. Somehow he had managed to keep the paintings for a while, even over his parents’ protests. Maybe Auntie Dawnie had something to do with that. But then five days later, she had gone to school, and Daddy had decided that enough was enough. Alex had screamed and stamped his feet in the tub and angrily splashed water at his father as all his beautiful pictures were scrubbed away.

Now he wanted to see what Aunt Willow had painted on her tummy, and she wouldn’t show him.

But Mommy was as determined as he was, and a lot stronger. She reached across and lifted the shirt up enough to see some of the design painted across Willow’s stomach. It kinda looked like a moon and a big lightning bolt.

“Willow,” she said. “I know this symbol. We’ve been researching it for weeks. Dead bodies are showing up with this symbol, just about where you have yours.”

The witch shoved her friend away and stood up, smoothing her top back down over her stomach. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s harmless. We all have it painted on us, ’cause it makes it easier to do the group spells when we have this to link us all together. I could wash it off anytime I wanted to.”

His mother stood too, and Alex glanced back and forth between them. He didn’t understand why they were fighting. Willow’s tummy painting wasn’t that ugly. Maybe a dragon would have been better. Or some pretty colors.

“This is bad news, Will. Maybe this group you’re hanging out with isn’t all tra-la-la through the daisies and group hugs.”

Willow’s face darkened. The Lego dinosaur fell out of the air and hit the floor, breaking into all its separate pieces. “They said you wouldn’t understand, and they were right. You wanted me to get a life and get over it, but only if it was the life you wanted me to have. You can’t stand that I have friends besides the Scooby gang, that I’m doing stuff that doesn’t involve slaying and watching people I love get killed.”

“That’s not fair. I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re jumping to conclusions about people you don’t know anything about. It’s just a focal point for a harmless joining spell. That’s all. And you... you want to make it into some sort of evil-Willow-fell-in-with-a-bad-crowd-and-I-have-to-save-her thing.”

Buffy threw her hands in the air. “Don’t you get that people have died, and it had something to do with that symbol?”

“Don’t you get that I’m happy?” Willow retorted. “I know these people. I trust them. And whoever else is using this symbol for whatever other reason, my friends don’t have anything to do with it.” She crossed her arms. “Now, if you’re going to say anything more about it, then I think you should leave.”

“I think I should leave then.”

And his mother picked him up in her arms and carried him briskly towards the door. He waved over his shoulder sadly. “Bye-bye, Auntie Wiwo,” he called just before the door closed behind them.

***

Spike was dreaming of Dru. He did that sometimes, now that she was well and truly dead. He wondered if Angel dreamt of Darla after he staked her. They had both done it to save Buffy, and yet he didn’t think it had cost Angel as dearly. Spike had honestly loved Drusilla. She was his black beauty, his savior, and he had kissed her one last time as she turned to dust in his arms.

But he never dreamed of that. She was always alive in his dreams, and it was always the past.

This time it was a Chicago speakeasy, and she was draped across his lap as he played poker with a roomful of gangsters. Little did any of them know that they were gambling with their lives now that they had invited Spike to the table to play.

“Naughty boy,” she whispered in his ear. “All those kings and queens and no princes to come after. Tsk, tsk, who shall rule when they are dead?”

The others at the table groaned and folded.

“Dru, darling, it’s kind of hard to play this game when you keep telling everyone what I’ve got in my bloody hand!”

She pouted at him. “But I want to play a different game. I want to play murder. If you’re very good, I might let you win.”

The others at the table looked confused. The kingpin asked them, “How do you play that game? It doesn’t have a lot of wild cards does it?”

“Two wild cards,” she informed him. “And it’s very easy to play.” Her face transformed into her vampire mask, her yellow eyes glittering in delight as she laid out the rules. “We kill you, and you die. Child’s play.”

And then all was a blur as the table overturned and the men ran and they were in the middle of the hunt and the kill. Only Spike didn’t kill. He held some punk kid by the arm, and the guy fought against him, and Spike could feel the bloodlust and his fangs against his tongue. Only he didn’t kill. He just stood there staring at this twenty-something kid. The first time, he remembered he had drained the boy, and half the room after, and his head had swum with the heady taste of bootleg liquor in their blood. Now he just stared at the fear in this kid’s eyes.

Drusilla came up beside him and snapped the boy’s neck, pushing his dead body out of the way. She tapped her Childe on the forehead. “Tin soldiers’ knick knacks can’t hurt you yet.” There was blood on her lips, and he tasted it when she leaned in to kiss him. “You’re free here. Free to hunt. Free to kill.”

“I can’t,” he answered softly.

“Awww,” she soothed as she stroked along his bumpy forehead until it smoothed back into its human guise. “My poor, poor boy. Someone has stolen his heart and keeps it in her pocket.” She pressed her hands to her temple and jerked her head to the side with each statement. “Can’t hunt. Can’t kill. She’ll hate you for it.” She circled his neck with her arms. “Poor Spike. Thought the Slayer had the key to his heart. But she wasn’t the Key, was she?”

Spike sighed and smoothed her long black hair back from her face, and she leaned into his caresses. “Ahh, Dru, even without a soul, we can still love quite well, can’t we?”

“If not wisely,” she reminded him.

“You see: this, what we had, this was right, wasn’t it?”

She smiled. “Right as the pretty dead orphans all in a row.”

He turned from her and paced to the other side of the back storage room they were in. “The Slayer... the Slayer was all wrong. She was the enemy I couldn’t kill, and there’s a thin line between love and hate. But Dawn’s different. She was gradual, comfortable, until I couldn’t remember not wanting her. But it’s wrong, isn’t it, luv? It’ll never work.”

He felt Drusilla’s arms slide around his waist and her cool breath against his neck. “I have a little secret for my Spike. The pixies whispered it to me while I was sleeping so far away. Something’s coming. I feel it calling to me, singing across my whole body.” She squirmed against his back, writhing against him. “The Beast is coming, and won’t they need my precious Spike, then? Topple their house of cards, and the Watcher will call you brother.”

He turned and took his black beauty in his arms. “What do you mean, Dru?”

She giggled and pressed one finger to her lips as if she had a wonderful secret. “Magic, Spike. Ding-dong, the witch is dead, and you’ll have to play with her toys while the Watcher sleeps.”

“I don’t do magic, Dru. I’m not some soddin’ wizard or something.”

“Just an itty-bitty spell, Spikey. And then he’ll give you the Key to your happiness.” She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on his cheek. “Be happy, Spike. If you can’t find your happiness in the kill, then find it in her. I couldn’t save you, but she can. Tsk, tsk,” she scolded with a wagging finger. “Watcher’s here, and you haven’t any tea.”

He was about to ask her what she was talking about when he heard the loud bang and bolted upright from his dream. The Watcher had flung open the door and was striding into his crypt. Spike wiped the sleep from his eyes. “Christ, whatever happened to knocking?”

He was lifted from his sarcophagus bed and rammed into the wall behind him by way of reply.

“Bloody hell,” Spike gasped. “Who woke up on the wrong side of the Slayer this morning?”

“Dawn tells me the two of you are getting married and living in LA together.”

Spike smirked and tried to shift beneath the other man’s grip. “Yeah, so what? What business is it of yours?”

Giles abruptly released him and began pacing the length of the crypt. “Last time I checked, you had to be alive to get married.”

Spike shrugged and pulled out a cigarette. “Yeah, I guess for it to be all legal and stuff. But there’s a bloke downtown who does fake papers for some of the demons who live ’round here.” He stopped when he caught the Watcher’s glare. Maybe the man hadn’t come to hear about wedding plans. “So you’ve come to give me the ‘I forbid it’ lecture, have you?”

Giles bent over and picked up a rock, throwing it neatly at one of the black painted windows near the top of the crypt. The glass shattered, and Spike ducked to avoid the sunlight now streaming through the middle of his home. The Watcher picked up another rock and bust out another window, and Spike had to jump out of the way to narrowly miss those rays.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! You don’t see me showing up at your door with a shotgun, do you? Well, okay, there was that one time, but I didn’t shoot anything.” A third window broke, and he was pressed against the wall to avoid the sun.

“You claim you love her. If you truly do, then you’ll say goodbye to her, and let her live a normal life.”

Spike pulled out another cigarette. He had dropped the other. He had also dropped his lighter. He shrugged and stuck one finger in the sunlight until it burned. Christ, that hurt, but he had too much pride to let it show. He lit the cigarette from his finger, and then smothered the flame from his smoldering digit. The Watcher was watching him, and he didn’t seem all that impressed. “I do love her.” He took a satisfying drag off his cigarette. “I know you find that hard to believe, but I do.”

The Watcher retrieved another rock from the crypt floor and made to bust out another window. Spike held out his hands to stall him. Giles paused, his arm in mid-swing, and waited.

“The Great Pooftah wants to date your slayer, and it’s all poetry and star-crossed lovers. Even after his little stint in Hell, you lot take him back with open arms. Because he is the great brooding souled wonder, able to melt hearts with a single look of suffering and regret. But Spike will never measure up, will he? No, because he lacks that all-important-gotta-have-it-or-he’s-less-than-a-man-soddin’ Soul. You know what? Screw Angel and his fucking Soul.”

Spike tapped out the ash from his cigarette and squeezed along the perimeter of his crypt until he had reached the one remaining dark corner where he could pace with the full power of his anger. “His amazing disappearing Soul. They could never be happy together, ’cause he can’t be happy with anyone, or it’s bye-bye Angel, hello Angelus.”

He faced the Watcher, punctuated his words with the cigarette between his fingers. “Dawn and I can be happy, perfectly happy together.” Giles raised the hand holding the rock once more, and Spike waved at him desperately. “No, no, no. Not just happy in the Biblical sense. I mean all around happy.” Giles lowered his hand, and Spike took that as invitation to continue. “I mean, put Angel next to me, and who’s the better man? Without my soul, I can still choose to fight the good fight and be a white hat and all that. Without his soul... well, you would know better than anyone what a sadistic bastard he can be.” Spike saw the shudder go through the man, and he wondered if the Watcher had ever let his merry band of children know exactly what had been done to him in that mansion.

“You’re still not a man, Spike. You can’t give her everything she deserves. You can’t give her any kind of life. You can’t even get a job. And what about children?”

The vampire shrugged and took another drag off his cigarette. He blew a smoke ring and watched it in contemplation. “Might surprise you to know that Dawn already has a plan for that. She thought you or Xander might give it up.” Spike smiled. The Watcher looked speechless, and that was always fun to do. “Not my first two choices, mind you, and I think I’d rather it be Xander, but Dawn knows you always had your heart set on a daughter. She knows it wouldn’t be yours and Buffy’s, but it would be a Summers all the same.”

Giles dropped the rock and turned away from him. Spike finished smoking and stamped his butt out on the ground. He glanced out one broken window. Maybe another hour to sunset, and then he could get those fixed. With any luck, he could maybe pay Dawn a visit.

“You don’t deserve her.”

“No, I don’t. You don’t deserve her sister either, but Summers women are pretty stubborn in who they love, aren’t they?”

The Watcher stepped to the door to leave, but Spike stopped him at the threshold. “One more thing, mate: you can stop her from seeing me, ground her and what have you, but Dawn’s old enough to make her own choices now. In the end, she’ll do what she likes, so you have to ask yourself: do you want to be part of her life or not?”

The Watcher disappeared out into the sunshine without another word. Spike carefully made his way to the other side of his crypt, avoiding each patch of sunshine, until he was sitting on his ragged old couch. He turned on the telly. At least the Watcher hadn’t thrown a rock through that.

***

Jonathon huddled deeper into his sweatshirt. He had thought California nights would be warmer than this. He had also thought two hundred dollars would get him a lot farther than it had. He was wrong on both accounts. He saw an older woman coming down the alleyway towards him. He pulled his knees into his chest, trying to curl around himself and make himself smaller. Maybe she wouldn’t notice him in the doorway and walk past. He was barely seventeen, but that didn’t seem to matter much. He had already been propositioned several times by older women. One had actually been almost twenty-seven.

She did notice him, and changed direction to approach him. Jonathon groaned softly. He was tired of saying no.

“Hey, kid, need a place to stay tonight?”

He shook his head, hoping she would just go.

“Are you sure? ’Cause it looks to me like you’re sleeping in a doorway in some dark alley in a pretty seedy part of town.” She knelt down in front of him. “You look familiar. Jonathon, right?”

He glanced up, startled. “Did my parents send you?”

She laughed lightly. “No. Don’t worry about that. I just think I recognized you from an audition I helped with a few weeks back. You tried out for that chicken soup ad, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

She turned to sit in the doorway beside him, her back leaning against the chained and bolted door. She drew up her knees to her chest to match his posture. She was a lot smaller than he was, but Jonathon thought she was maybe 26 or 27, maybe even 28. Short hair, a friendly smile. He began to feel at ease with her right away.

She turned to the side and studied him. “LA’s a big town to be in by yourself. You know, I was a runaway a long time ago. Came here to hit it big. My parents didn’t understand. I lived in this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, and they couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to just meet some nice farmer and settle down with a flock of kids.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, mine too.”

“I packed up one night with all the cash I had saved and took a midnight bus to LA. Never looked back. That what you did, kid?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“I think we have something else in common,” she said with a small smile. “I thought I had an advantage over all the other fledgling talents. I thought I could give the directors a little push, give myself a little glamour, maybe make my name stand out just a little bit brighter. You know... magic?”

Jonathon’s eyes grew wide, and he stared at her in shock. He had never told anyone his little secret. He had grown up in a town of just over 700, and magic was wrapped up with the devil in their eyes. “How... how did you know?”

“C’mon, you got called back, didn’t you? And sorry to tell you, but you weren’t that good.” She pulled a business card from her pocket. “Tell you what. I run a shelter for runaways on the side, and you come by, I’ll put you up. We have about twenty boys there right now, and I think you’ll fit right in. Maybe I can hook you up with some acting jobs, maybe teach you a little magic in your spare time. Would you like that?”

He smiled widely. “Yes, I would. Thank you...” He glanced down at her card to find her name. “Thank you, Sabrina.”

***

Giles tried to focus on the book he was reading, but he was spending more time looking at the clock on the wall. It was getting very late, and Buffy still hadn’t brought Alex home. She never took him on patrol with her, and she hadn’t skipped a night of slaying in quite a while. He was beginning to worry. Dawn, at least, was safely upstairs on the computer, probably telling her online friends how mean her guardians were to keep her from her boyfriend. If Buffy had truly left him, she would have taken her sister. So at least he knew she would be back.

Finally at a little after midnight, the phone rang. There was a moment where he felt sick to his stomach, and he didn’t want to answer it. But he swallowed that feeling and picked up the receiver.

“Giles?” It was Xander.

“Is everything alright?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer to that.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. That’s why I was calling. I know Buffy’s pretty ticked at you right now, but I thought someone should at least call you and let you know that they’re fine. They’re probably staying overnight, and then Buffy said something about shopping tomorrow. But, hey, she’s gotta work on Monday, so she can’t stay... Hey!” Giles heard a commotion in the background and a loud crash. Xander’s voice was muffled. “Alex! C’mere, Uncle Xander’s got a present for you. Shh... Don’t tell Mommy.” And then he was talking into the receiver again. “I’m back. Sorry about that, Giles, but I think you owe me a new Babylon 5 collector’s plate.”

“What is Alex still doing up? It’s past midnight.”

“He was asleep for a while, and then he woke up, and Buffy’s on patrol, and Anya gave him some ice cream, and he’s a little wired. Here, just a sec. Hey, Alex, wanna talk to Daddy?”

He heard his son’s chorus of affirmations, and Giles smiled. A moment later he heard his son’s soft breaths over the line. “Daddy?” the boy said softly.

“Hello, son.”

Alex giggled. “Wiwo make Lego fly. Tummy painted.”

“You had your tummy painted?” he asked, confused.

Alex giggled again. “No. Wiwo. Auntie Aunie i’cream.”

“Yes, Xander told me about that.”

“Oopsie. Broke p’ate.”

“Yes, I heard that too.”

His son was silent for a moment, and Giles wondered if he was handing the phone back to Xander. But then the child informed him very quietly, “Mommy cry.”

Giles didn’t know exactly how to respond to that. He leaned his forehead against the wall, holding the receiver a little more tightly. “Yes, she’s very sad right now, so you’ll need to be extra nice to her for me. Okay?”

“’Kay,” the boy said brightly. “Uncie Xand talk. Bye-bye. Luf you, Daddy.”

“I love you too.”

But Xander already had the phone by then. “Wow, G-man. You love me? That’s so sweet.”

Giles sighed. “Xander...”

“Yeah, well, I’d better get going before Buffy gets back from patrol. Listen, she told me everything that happened, and... well... I know she’s pretty upset about it, but... I just wanted you to know that I probably would have done the same thing in your place. So... you know... if you wanted to stop by tomorrow, Anya and I are probably going to order in Chinese and watch movies.”

Giles was touched by Xander’s concern. But he hesitated before answering. “This wouldn’t by chance be an elaborate attempt to force Buffy and me into the same room together, would it?”

“God no!” came the insistent reply. “I don’t want an angry Slayer in my house. If we were going to fix you two up, that would be more of an eating out thing. So... you coming over?”

“Thank you for your kind offer, but I really have a lot of research to go over. I managed to pick up a few books with information on the sword of Camela while I was in LA.”

“Suit yourself. Hey, Slayer in the house. Gotta go.”

Giles heard the click, and he hung up as well. At least they were safe. He sat at his desk and focused on his reading a little more easily. He had no desire to lay down in his empty bed, so in the end, he fell asleep at his desk, his head resting on the book before him.

He woke the same, slightly later than usual. He puttered around the kitchen, fixing tea and eggs. His morning routine seemed empty without his usual three-year-old shadow. He rarely spent this much time away from the boy. Alex came to the store with him when Buffy worked, and the only times she had their son alone were the Saturdays he worked at the store and she had off. Sundays were their time together, he and Buffy and Alex and Dawn.

He ate his breakfast alone, missing his son terribly. But then, he imagined that was the point. Buffy wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her. He wondered bleakly if she would ever forgive him.

Dawn joined him after a short time, and they sat in silence, not sure what to say to each other. She saved him the bother by leaving to go to her friend’s house. He called to check up on her after a little while, just to make sure she hadn’t snuck off to see Spike.

He had a Sunday to himself, something that hadn’t happened since living in this house. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself. There was always research, and yet his heart just wasn’t in it. Within a few hours, he had an unexpected visitor to provide some distraction.

“John!”

His friend stepped around him, glancing around the house as he entered. “Aren’t you going to ask how I knew where you lived?”

Giles shut the door behind him. “I imagine you looked in the phone book.”

John grimaced. “Damn. I could have done that, I guess. Probably would have been easier than having April look it up in the precinct database. Having a cop for a wife is kinda cool, sometimes you forget there are more conventional ways to get information.”

Giles laughed and waved the other man to a seat in the living room. “If it were Buffy, she would have just shoved a phone book in my hands. Can I get you anything?”

“Nah, can’t stay long.” Giles couldn’t quite conceal his disappointment, and John seemed to reconsider. “Well, maybe a Coke.”

When Giles returned with the soda for his guest and tea for himself, he found John holding a framed photo of their little family. The man chuckled. “Poor kid got his father’s looks.”

Giles nudged him playfully as he passed over the soda, and John chuckled even more. “So where is the little munchkin?” the man asked.

Giles sat in the armchair just to the side of John. “Buffy took him shopping for the day. Dawn, her sister, that’s the other girl in the picture, she went to a friend’s.”

“So they left you home alone?” John took a long swig from his can, and then studied his friend for several moments. “You and the Mrs. have a fight?”

Giles found himself caught off guard, and the teacup rattled against the saucer. “How did you know?”

“Women and shopping. I think it’s a genetic thing. They get mad at you, and they go shopping. If you sent her out with a credit card, you’ll probably be forgiven by the time she gets home.”

Giles laughed and set his cup on the table. “I doubt that very much.”

“A man can hope.” He sighed. “I wish I could stay longer, but I only dropped by to see if you wanted to have dinner with April and me on Tuesday night. Bring the family. It’ll be fun. I’m going to cook out on the grill, and I guarantee you’ve never had anything like my barbeque chicken.”

Giles smiled and accepted. “Although, such an invitation could have easily been extended by phone.”

John shrugged sheepishly. “Alright, so I kinda wanted to have a look at your place and maybe meet your kid. And I had a little time to kill before my daughter came for lunch.”

They sat in silence for a little longer, before they resumed their conversation from the night of the charity banquet. And the little time John claimed he had to spare soon turned into an hour, at the end of which he rushed home, saying his wife was going to go shopping with his money now that he was so late.

Giles was left alone once more with his empty house and his heavy heart. He buried himself in research, not expecting Dawn home until after dinner or Buffy until she absolutely had to return for work. He was somewhat surprised to hear his son’s chorus of “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” sometime before dinner.

He had barely turned the corner into the foyer, when he was met with a flailing mass of waving arms and sprinting legs. He lifted the boy easily, and gratefully accepted the child’s enthusiastic hugs and kisses.

Alex bounced excitedly in his arms. “Go park. Go beach. Feed birdies.” He held up one tiny finger, now wearing a band-aid. “Bad birdies. Owie.” He held the finger to his father’s lips, for him to kiss and make better, which Giles gently did.

Buffy came up behind them, and Giles searched her expression for some hint of what she was feeling. But she was closed off from him, and told their son, “Go play in your room for a little bit, Alex. I have to talk to your father.”

Giles set the boy on the ground, and he dutifully climbed the stairs to his room. Giles braced himself for whatever was coming next.

Buffy crossed her arms. “The Host.”

“What?” He shook his head. Surely he had missed some part of this conversation?

“The green guy at the demon karaoke bar. We sang, and he told us we would get our daughter back, but if we lost her again, she would belong to the darkness. Tell me you didn’t just give her up to the darkness.”

Giles sighed. “Prophecy is a tricky thing, Buffy. And I don’t tend to have a lot of faith in what the man at Caritas told us. It was all very vague, and well... a karaoke bar.”

“He said we should keep her, that if we didn’t, it would be a bad thing.”

“All we can do is make the best decision we can with the information we have at the time. Whatever vague warnings the Host might have given us are vastly outweighed by the very real choice the Council has laid before us. Let her adoptive parents keep her, or raise her as a slayer. Given that choice, there is only one acceptable option. You must see that.”

She looked down, still unwilling to let go of her hope. “Maybe we say we’ll train her, and take her, and then back out. What are they going to do? They can’t take her back.”

This was the moment he had dreaded. He wasn’t sure how much of that blackmail he could reveal to Buffy. “I had considered that possibility, but Travers set me straight rather quickly. They have proof that I killed Ben, and they’ll bring me up on murder charges if we try it.”

Her eyes darted up to his, and there was compassion there. “Oh, Giles!”

He swallowed and looked away. Would she still show him such sympathy if she knew the truth about Longsworth and Sulla as well? “I would take it, Buffy, if I thought... I’m not afraid of going to jail, and I would do it gladly to bring her home to you, but... that is to say...”

She stopped him with a tender touch on his chest. “But I don’t have forever, and if you were gone too, they wouldn’t have any parents.”

He nodded softly and felt her arms slide around him, something he had never thought to feel again. He wrapped his own around her and held her tightly as he felt her begin to sob against him. Her tears slowed for a moment, and her voice was muffled against his chest. “I know you probably did the right thing by leaving her there... but I still hate you for it... I can’t help it... You should have told me... You should have taken me with you... I know you think I shouldn’t see her... that it would just make it worse... but I don’t need you to protect me.” Her sobs resumed in earnest. “Oh, God... I just... want to... be with... her.”

He rubbed her back kindly as she wept in his arms. “I know, luv, so do I.”

***

Sabrina paced impatiently. Joseph Zalk watched her pace, finding her impatience very irritating.

“It’s coming, it’s coming,” he assured her.

Joseph Zalk was practiced at cool and collected. He was a lawyer after all. Or at least he had been before that fatal wine tasting. He probably would have even made partner at Wolfram and Hart by now, but they didn’t as a general rule employ vampires. They only kept them on as clients. So he had paid his money, and they had gotten him what she wanted, and now Sabrina would get him what he wanted.

Two other vampires finally entered the warehouse, carrying a long box between them. She nearly jumped up and down when she caught sight of it.

He motioned the two over and opened the box, pulling out the coveted item. He drew it from its sheath and handed it over.

She held it as if it were made of glass, tracing her fingers over the etching on the blade and the symbol on the hilt. “The sword of Camela,” she breathed, as though the words were her favorite prayer. “Finally, after all this time.”

He snatched the blade back from her hands and re-sheathed it. Her face darkened, and he said curtly, “You’ll get your payment after I get mine.”

Sabrina crossed her arms. “Fine. I’ve just found the perfect boy to round out our circle. A circle of twelve, and I will be the thirteenth, the center. We’ll cast our spell tomorrow night, so you be ready with your men.”

“The spell will show us the location of every last one?” He had asked the question many times before, but he was a lawyer, and he hated loopholes. He would have rather had a written contract, but witches didn’t generally work that way.

“Yes,” she replied in irritation. “The spell will show you every last potential slayer in the whole world. If you’ve done a good enough job spreading your men out across the globe, you should be able to pick them all off.”

He smiled happily. “And then when we kill the Slayer...”

“There will be no one to Call,” she finished for him. “No more slayers ever.”

He nodded approvingly and rubbed his hands together happily. This would definitely buy him back into the employ of Wolfram and Hart. Perhaps even into a partnership. “We’ll hold the sword for safekeeping until the spell is finished, and the slayers are all dead. Then I will gratefully give you your payment.”

Sabrina nodded her acceptance and exited the warehouse. Joseph re-boxed the sword of Camela and made sure it was stored somewhere only he had access to it. If Holland Manners could see him now, wouldn’t he be proud?

***

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