Family Matters, PG-13, Spike and assorted OCs
Family Matters
By Barb C
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to me.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing/Characters: B/S implied; Spike and assorted OCs.
Synopsis: You run into a lot of weird shit on the road.
Author’s notes: Post-Gift AU. This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It's futurefic, taking place somewhen around 2040. Many thanks to betas deborahc, rainkatt, bruttimabuoni, slaymesoftly, kehf, and typographer, whose help was invaluable in smacking this story into shape.
Goffs, CA is an actual railroad ghost town, population 23, thirty-five miles east of Needles on historic Route 66. It's currently maintained as a museum by the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association. Charlie's Diner is my own invention.
"Candice? That you?"
Candy got goosebumps at the sound of that voice, tinny and far-off as it was. She'd just been standing beneath the draft of the diner's ancient swamp cooler, wishing for real cold, when her cell went off. Now she stood like an ice statue, here and now hushed by the past buzzing in her ear.
"Candice!" the voice crackled. "I know it's you. Damn it, girl, say something!"
"Hey, Candy," Charlie yelled, and the world started in yammering again - forks rattling on plates, grease sizzling in the fryer, Patsy Cline sobbing on the jukebox. "Them burgers won't serve themselves."
She yanked her earset off and grabbed the order in front of her - booth six, double-cheese and a sweating bottle of Pabst. Maybe she heard, "I'm still your father, Candice!" before the set hit her apron pocket, but maybe not. Didn't matter, anyway.
Outside the sunbaked flats of the Mojave stretched off towards the horizon, where jagged teeth of mountains nipped at the bright blue sky. The backwards scrollwork of neon in the diner's flyspecked window flickered "ARLIE'S DINER" in time to the pounding of her heart. Six o'clock in the evening, with the sun still a fat orange balloon in the western sky. Her shift didn't end till midnight. Long enough to make plans. Not that there was much to plan, because she'd long ago plotted out her just-in-cases, neat and easy. (No, not easy. Never easy. But neat, anyway.) Five minutes to ride her bike from the diner to the dilapidated motel she called home, another fifteen to grab the wad of cash under her mattress and stuff a change of clothes in her backpack. A couple of hours to bike into Needles, head down to the bus station and light out for somewhere that wasn't here.
It was too bad. Goffs wasn't much more than a wide spot in the road, but she liked it here. Rent was cheap and people minded their own business. She'd let that lull her into thinking she was safe.
Dinner rush was three truckers ducking the new weigh station on I-40, two sweating and bewildered Swedish tourists on the way to the Grand Canyon, and a family heading west to L.A. Candy took orders and flirted and recommended the chicken-fried steak, counting the minutes. She toyed with the thought of asking Charlie to give her a ride home, but set it aside. When she didn't show up for her shift tomorrow, she wanted her boss to be as surprised as anyone.
"Candy!" bellowed Charlie from the kitchen. The cook's broad shoulders filled the order window. Candy jumped, almost dropping a bottle of ketchup. "Get me another box of napkins from the storeroom - we're runnin' short!"
"Where's Alan?" she yelled back. That was busboy work. Might be her last night, but a girl had to stand on principle. "He was supposed to be in here an hour ago!"
"Just called in sick. Again. One more time and I'm gonna fire his skinny ass." Charlie shook his head and stuffed one straying dreadlock back into his hairnet. "God damn, just this once, don't argue with me, girl. I already got me a headache."
Oh, what the hell. It was her last night. "Seeing as you ask so nice..."
The storeroom was out back, a one-room adobe building slowly crumbling in on itself under long-wearing years of sun and wind and infrequent rain. Candy trudged around the side of the diner, memorizing every curlicue of peeling paint, every scraggly weed growing in the cracks of the parking lot asphalt. Anyone who bitched about the swamp cooler, she thought, just needed to take a walk outside. Even now, with the sun skimming the mountaintops and the spidery branches of the creosote painting long blue shadows across the sand, the heat smacked you in the face like a hundred-and-twenty degree sledgehammer. Sweat dried as soon as it sprang up on her brow. This part of living in Goffs she definitely wouldn't miss.
The storeroom windows were opaque with dust, but Candy caught a glimpse of the pale blur of a face behind one of them, quickly ducking away as she approached. That wasn't good. Shit. What if it was him, hiding out in there? Calling her from a hundred yards away, just to mess with her head?
No. If he were here, he'd be marching in and making a scene. Panicking over nothing was gonna get her in more trouble than anything he could do. Climbing the worn sandstone steps to the storeroom door, Candy slipped her earset on, thumb poised over the speed dial for 911, and eased the door open.
For just a second before she flicked on the lights, Candy caught a flash of eyes in the darkness, pupils reflecting copper and green like an animal's. There was a shriek and a crash, and half a pallet of industrial-grade toilet paper toppled over and bounced every which way, tumbling across the concrete floor. "Who's there?" Candy demanded. "Speak up or I'm calling the cops right now!" Empty threat when it would take the cops at least twenty minutes to get here from Needles, but people who hid out in storerooms weren't always that bright.
"Please," a small voice said. "Don't. Don't call the police. They'll tell him I'm here."
Sprawled on her butt in the corner, behind a barricade of TP, was a girl, maybe a couple of years younger than Candy herself - no more than fifteen. She was wearing a grubby pink hoodie and grubbier jeans, and had a backpack shaped like a cartoon cat slung over one shoulder. Blue eyes stared up at Candy from beneath a tangle of sandy hair, defiant and terrified. Beneath the smudges of dirt, her face was pale as milk.
"Oh, shit,," said Candy, exasperated. She planted her fists on her hips. "Girl, what do you think you're doing here?"
"Please, just a little bit longer." The kid scrambled to her feet and wrapped twiggy arms around her skinny torso. "I'll be gone the minute the sun sets! Or - or I'll wash dishes for you! Or anything! I - really, anything, just don't tell anyone I'm here! My dad's looking for me, and I can't go back with him! I can't!" Her white-rimmed gaze darted towards the window, and her voice dropped to a husky, miserable whisper. "He's - he's a monster."
Candy dropped to her haunches, hands loose between her knees. Unthreatening, she hoped. She'd felt real fear often enough to recognize it now. "Look, I know what's that's like. Did he hit you? If your old man's trouble..." Who was she kidding? She was no hero. Just a traveler a little farther down the same road. "I... I can call the police."
"No, no, you can't do that!" The girl backed up against the storeroom wall, shaking her head violently. "They're... my sister's a cop, and she thinks - " She gulped hard, fighting back tears. "She thinks it's my fault. She'll make me go home, and...and my mom will kill me."
"It's not your fault," Candy snapped. "You better believe that."
The kid's big doubtful eyes said she wasn't buying it. Candy wasn't sure she bought it herself. How often had she lain awake at night, wondering if things would have gone better if only she'd said or done something different? "Fine," she sighed. "You can stay here. But you've got to be gone before midnight." Because the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'm going to be long gone by then myself. She pulled a carton of napkins down off the shelf, balancing it on one hip. "Pick up all that toilet paper you knocked over, and then come inside. I'll get you a meal before you go, anyway."
The girl wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve (weird, wearing a hoodie in this heat) and nodded. Odds were the kid wouldn't take her up on it, Candy knew, but she felt better for making the offer.
Charlie was on his cell when she got back to the diner. "What? What for? God damn it, you promised me - well, where the fuck are you?" Through the order window she could see him waving a spatula around, arguing with thin air. Schizos had it easy these days - everyone just assumed you were taking a call. She knew that tone of voice. Must be Russell. Russell was Charlie's uncle, and once a month, like clockwork, he'd get dragged in on a drunk and disorderly and call Charlie to come bail him out. Just her luck he picked tonight to do it.
Or maybe it was luck. If Charlie left early, she could get the kid on her way and make her own escape early, too.
Candy kept an ear out as she did the rounds, booth one to booth eight, Ready to order yet, oh, come on, you've got room for dessert, refill on that coffee, hon? Funny how everyone assumed you were older than they were if you just called them 'hon.'
"Jesus fucking Christ," Charlie swore, slamming out through the swinging door. He ripped off his grease-stained apron, shaking his dreads out of the hairnet. "That bastard knows I'm short-handed this week. Bullhead fucking City, he says! Can you handle the grill by yourself, Candy, or do I gotta close up?"
"No problem." By tomorrow morning, Charlie would be even more short-handed. She felt a little guilty about that. For all the yelling, he was a pretty decent boss, a pretty nice guy. She waved at the half-empty row of red vinyl booths. "Anyway, it'll be dead once this bunch clears out." It was always dead, this time of year. Any time of year. Two or three customers in a long hot afternoon, a dozen at lunch or dinner if they were lucky. That was one reason she'd come here, to the ass-end of nowhere, to a run-down diner on the outskirts of an all-but-ghost town on a potholed stretch of highway that nobody drove anymore. Get your kicks on Route 66.
"Sure you'll be OK?" Charlie asked.
There was worry in his dark eyes, but kindness, too, and for a minute she thought about telling him everything. But Charlie had his own problems, and she'd been burned before, by people who seemed to be decent bosses and nice guys. So she grinned wide and happy. "I'm a big girl," she said. "I can handle it."
Charlie sighed, scratching his belly. "Russell's such a fucking screwup," he muttered. "Someday I swear I'm gonna let him rot in there. But what can you do?"
Candy shrugged, commiserating. "Every family's got one."
She watched Charlie chug out of the parking lot in his crappy old reconditioned Prius, baked so long in the California sun you couldn't tell what color it had been when it left the factory. One by one she rang the truckers up, dodging the inevitable attempt to pinch her ass - sometimes she thought about telling them she was still six months shy of eighteen, but with her luck, they'd just find that a turn-on. She pointed the tourists down Mountain Springs towards I-40, and sent the family on its bickering way. The kid never showed, and Candy wasn't sure if she was worried or relieved about that.
The sun was balancing on the horizon as she wiped down the tables, started up the dishwasher, and totaled up the day's receipts. She'd leave the place tidy, at least. She owed Charlie that much. She was about to turn off the neon and flip the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED when the guy on the motorcycle roared up.
For a second, Candy could have sworn that wisps of smoke rose from his shoulders as he swung off the cycle and strode across the parking lot and up onto the porch. Had to be the heat waves off the asphalt. At first glance he could have passed for any of the grizzled old bikers who blew into the diner on the hot desert wind and blew out again in a hail of gravel. Black leather and denim from head to toe, not an inch of skin showing anywhere, and everything he was wearing had seen a lot of miles. The weird thing was, he was wearing a helmet - the kind that covered his whole head like an astronaut, with a visor so dark she couldn't see his face at all. The hard-core bikers never wore helmets if they could get away with it, even these days, with everyone worried about skin cancer and the ozone layer.
He loosened the clasps of his helmet and paused in the shade of the porch for a long moment, like he was listening for something, or - she had a flashback to a scene from an old movie - smelling for something. Candy thought about just telling him to shove off, she wasn't firing up the grill again. "We're closing," she shouted through the door.
"Only need a minute, love."
Maybe it was the accent, or the weary slump of his shoulders through the glass, or the fear he'd remember the frustration of losing his dinner, and remember her, too, if anyone happened to ask. More likely she just didn't want to let go of her life again, not quite yet. Whatever it was, after a moment's hesitation, Candy opened the door. She'd just have to feed him and kick him out as fast as she could. "Come on in, then."
He gave a tired little chuckle, as if that was some kind of inside joke, and stepped across the threshold. When he unsnapped the helmet and tossed it on the counter, his lean, high-cheekboned face was as far from a biker’s tan as you could get, pale as old bone bleaching under the desert sun. He looked like he'd seen a lot of miles, himself - couple days' worth of stubble, and shadows beneath his bright blue eyes you could lose a Buick in. He took a deep breath, as if it were the first he'd had in awhile. He raked a hand through his hair and dropped onto a stool. “Coffee, black,” he said. “An’ a cheeseburger. Rare as you can make it, and hold the rabbit food.” He eyed the dessert rack. "And maybe a piece of that cherry pie."
“I can make it pretty rare,” Candy said, pouring coffee. Huh. There wasn’t any club insignia on his jacket.
The man grunted. “Threaten it with a match from afar and that’s enough for me.”
She kept a covert watch as the guy peeled off jacket and gloves and propped his elbows on the counter, rubbing his eyes like they hurt him. He was on the small side, only a couple of inches taller than she was, wiry and fine-boned. No tattoos on what she could see of his pale, muscular arms, which was another strike against the old-biker theory. It was hard to tell exactly how old he actually was - his salt-and-pepper curls were still thick, his shoulders still solid, and the deep laugh-lines around his eyes and mouth didn’t detract from the sense of coiled energy about him. His hand on the coffee cup looked strong enough to shatter it if he’d wanted to.
Despite the little belly stretching his t-shirt taut above his belt buckle, he looked like he could take on someone double his size and not think twice about it. After long enough on the road, you got a sense for which guys were dangerous, and this one didn't have the vibe. It was just, somehow, Candy felt like he should have the vibe.
"Looking for a girl," he said abruptly. "Runaway. 'Bout fifteen."
Candy stiffened, taking a harder grip on the knife. Shrugged, and sliced pie. "I see a lot of girls. Boys, too. After awhile they all sorta mush together."
"Got a photo." He held up a Blackberry, flashed a picture. Cleaner, happier, and not quite as skinny, but it was the girl in the storeroom, all right. "Name's Jess. Jessica. Might be going by something else. She's my youngest. Got reason to think she's come this way. Seen her?"
Eyes stared at her out of the Blackberry screen, blue as her father's. Honey-brown curls, darkening from little-kid blonde. The color this guy's hair might have been before he started going grey, maybe. Besides that there wasn't much resemblance. Kid must take after her mother. The one she'd claimed would kill her. Candy looked from the daughter's eyes back to the father's. "Most times, when a kid runs away from home, there's a reason."
There was more challenge in her tone than she intended, but the guy didn't twitch. He looked straight at her, straight into her, with those eyes like the Mojave sky. "Family matter, pet. Wouldn't say that's any of your business. "
"Yeah," Candy said viciously, slamming down the slice of pie. "It never is."
When she went back to the grill, she found that there was no more hamburger thawed, and Charlie'd locked the door to the freezer when he left. Fuck. There was a spare key in the storeroom. She could warn the kid about what was going on, and get this creep on his way as fast as possible. "Back in a minute," she said, and swept around the counter without waiting for an answer.
She circled the creep's hulking old antique of a full-combustion motorcycle. Why was she doing this? If the kid was smart, she was undoubtedly long gone. Every instinct told her to grab her bike and run, get while the getting was good, and never mind whether creepy old biker guy remembered her disappearing act or not.
The storeroom was dark again, one more reason to believe the kid had made herself scarce. "Jessica?" Candy whispered, fumbling for the light switch in the gloom. "Jess? Your dad's here. I'll see if I can get him gone, but - "
Jessica was still huddled in the corner. She flinched as the lights came on. "Oh, no!" she moaned. "He'll sniff me out for sure. What am I gonna do? I can't leave till it's dark!"
"What do you mean, you can't - "
"He's older than me! He can stand it longer!"
Before she could ask what the heck that meant, Candy heard the rumble of tires on gravel. She walked over to the window, scrubbed dirt off the glass. Another car was pulling into the parking lot. Shit. She should have turned off the sign. She didn't have time for this. She plucked the spare freezer key from the rack beside the door and slid it between her fingers, hesitated, and turned back to the girl. The slam of a car door, the crunch of footsteps. "Fine, whatever. Do what you want."
She turned to head back to the diner, only to be brought up short by the man standing in the shed doorway.
"Candice," her father said. "It's been awhile."
Candy took a step backwards, flicked her earset on, and punched the speed dial. "I just called the police," she said tightly. "You'd better just leave."
"If I leave, you're coming with me." His voice cracked on the words.
"I don't have to do a damn thing on your say-so. Not any more."
Her father's jaw worked. There was grey in his hair, now, too, and he didn't look so good - cheeks sallow, eyes bloodshot. Tremor in his hands. She could smell the stale beer. The little girl still living inside of her wept for him. It had only been two years, hadn't it? Seemed longer.
"You can forget that custody bullshit. Your mother's dead," he said, like he was telling her the milk had gone off.
It was a punch in the gut, but she was already reeling. What right did he have, to stand there with tears in his eyes? She gathered memory like armor, hurt like a sword. "Not me that killed her," she fired back.
His fist shot out, smacking her hard across the jaw. Candy yelled in pain and her earset went flying as the operator singsonged, "911. What is your emergency?"
"I'm calling from Charlie's Diner in Goffs, Route 66 - " Candy screamed at the spinning earset, before her father's boot snapped it in two. Callused fingers curled round her wrist, hard enough to bruise.
"No more arguing, Candice. I'm taking you home."
"Hey! You let her go!" Jess was on her feet, brandishing her stupid kitty-cat backpack as if she was going to chuck it at someone's head. Her eyes were a fulvous yellow in the fading sunset light. "Let her go, or I'll - "
"You'll shut your mouth," her father snapped. "This is a family matter." He wrenched Candy towards the door. Candy wrenched back, fear lending her strength.
Something happened to Jess's face then, something awful. "I said," she growled, "Let her go!"
Candy didn't see her move, but Jess was right beside them, golden eyes flashing beneath ridges of bone, fangs distorting her little-girl face. Little-girl hands grabbed her father's arm, and he screamed as bone shattered beneath little-girl fingers. He dropped Candy's wrist, and she collapsed to the dusty concrete. In a flash Jess had her father pinned to the wall.
"Jess!" Candy gasped. Shit, shitshitshit, she should have realized! Jess had practically spelled it out, refusing to leave the shed till sunset. But the middle of the Mojave wasn't vampire country! The bloodsuckers usually stuck to the big cities. "Please don't - "
Tawny eyes stared at her from an inhuman face. "Told you my Daddy was a monster, didn't I?" Jess said. "I am, too." She ran her tongue over her fangs. "And I'm hungry."
Candy's father's face was waxy, his eyes wild. "Candy, honey - please..."
"Shut up," Jess snarled. She yanked him down, jaws stretched wide, fangs glistening, and scrunched her eyes shut. Nerving herself to bite. "I'm evil."
"Maybe so, but I wouldn't do that if I were you, pet."
Candy blinked stupidly at the silhouette in the doorway. Jess's dad lounged against the doorpost, arms crossed, bone-white skin stark against black cotton. There were definitely wisps of smoke rising from his head and shoulders, but they fizzled out as the last sliver of sunlight winked out on the horizon.
"Daddy..." Jess's lower lip quivered, but she didn't loosen her grip on Candy's father. "Why not? I'm a vampire. That's what vampires do. We bite people." A little sob shook her. "And then the Slayer kills us."
"Vampires do a good many things." Her father strode across the shed, silent as the oncoming night. He lifted one hand, pale fingers caressing Jess's pale cheek. "Your mum's not going to kill you, love. You left the berk still breathing, after all. If barely." There was a note of something like pride in his voice, and Candy wasn't sure if it was because Jess hadn't killed someone, or because she almost had. He cocked an eyebrow at Candy's father. "This chap, now, that might be a different story."
Jess's thin shoulders were trembling. "I liked it," she whispered. "I want to do again."
"'Course you do, peanut," her father replied, matter-of-fact. "The bugger of it is, you can't have both. You've got to decide which you like better. Tonight, and every night, for the rest of your life. You can have the kill. Or you can have everything else."
Crouched on the cool cement, Candy watched the struggle flicker across Jess's face, eyes flashing gold and blue and gold again. She watched the sweat roll down her own father's face, watched his chest heaving, the short panicked breaths of a man who knows Death is passing close by. Outside the hard bright desert stars were starting to prick the darkening sky. And then Jess's features melted into human form again, fangs receding, ridges smoothing away into the furrowed brow of a fifteen-year-old girl. She dropped Candy's father and flung herself at her own.
"I want a chip in my head!" Jess wailed. "Like Mr. Lawson has, so I don't have to think!"
Jess's father caught her up in a fierce embrace, murmuring endearments as she sobbed into his shoulder. "There, sweet, there, we'll talk about it once we're home. You have any idea how often I've fucked it up, over the years? Right now it's time we called your mum and let her know I've found you. She's fretting herself sick."
Jess snuffled and wiped her nose. "Mom's really not going to slay me?"
Her father looked pained. "Think I can guarantee that much. Tan your hide and ground you for a year I won't make bets on." He nodded at Candy, like she was an afterthought. "Thought I was the villain of the piece, yeh? No hard feelings. Been plenty of times you wouldn't be wrong. Money for the pie's on the counter. Keep the change."
"Wait," Candy said, scrambling to her feet. "You can't - "
Slumped against the wall, clutching his broken arm, her father hissed, "Keep quiet and let 'em go! They'll kill us soon as look at us! You got to drive me to a hospital!"
Jess's father turned, bent down and lifted her father one-handed to his feet. He sure as hell had the vibe now. "Don't think the lady has to do anything, mate."
"She's my daughter, damn it!" There was a beseeching note in her father's voice. "You've got a girl of your own. You understand. I never meant her any harm. They need a little discipline when they run wild, is all."
The other man's face changed - like Jess's, but a million times worse: scales and horns to go with the fangs and ridges, claws erupting from his fingers like ebony scimitars. "I understand," he rumbled. "Better 'n you can possibly imagine. How good it feels when they cry. I'm a very bad man, mate. When I understand you, you're bloody well fucked." He glanced at Candy, leonine eyes lazy. "Your girl here did a good turn for my Jess, or tried to. Reckon I owe her one."
"Don't... please don't kill him," Candy gasped, small and faint.
The vampire grinned, an expression Candy would remember in nightmares for a long time to come. "He's not worth the trouble killing him'd bring. But I can make him wish I had. What's your pleasure, pet?"
There was part of her wanted to say Hurt him. Hurt him bad. Hurt him like he hurt me. And not watch, but listen to the screams, maybe, from safely outside. But what he'd said to Jess was right: if she took this one thing, she'd be giving up everything else. She wanted to think her choice came of being a good person, someone who could forgive and move on and live a life that was better than what she'd run away from. And maybe it was, a little, but mostly it was because the police were on their way, and the last thing she wanted was a felony committed on Charlie's property. Candy shook her head. "No. Don't. Just... stay here till the police come, okay?"
The monstrous features melted away as if they'd never been. Jess's father glanced at hers, a glint of amusement in his eyes. Getting off on the other man's fear. "You heard the lady," he drawled. "May as well get comfortable."
****
There were a lot of questions, and maybe someday Candy would regret not asking them. She was pretty sure Jess and her father weren't standard-issue vampires. For now she was just grateful that they seemed willing to nosh on ground beef instead of her jugular. She made them burgers while they waited for the police to show up, and they wolfed them down all but raw, sopping up the warm red juice from their plates.
Jess's dad turned out to be called Spike, though the ID he showed the police said something else. He told the cops it was him who'd broken her father's arm, trying to keep him off Candy and Jess - it just seemed easier that way, and it wasn't, as Spike pointed out, as if he wouldn't have done it with pleasure. Even if her dad gave a different story, with his blood alcohol level, no one was gonna believe him.
"I - you mean I don't have to go back with him? What happens now?" Candy asked, bewildered.
Officer Garcia closed his notebook. The tow truck's headlights silhouetted the defeated outline of her father's shoulders in the back seat of the police car, and Spike talking to Garcia's partner. "Why would you have to go back? Your ID says you're twenty, and I got no reason to think different." His eyes were very bright in the creases of his round cheeks. "Do I?"
Candy gulped and shook her head.
"Your papa, though...if we take him in on suspicion of DUI, it could be his third conviction in the last two years." Garcia tapped something into his palm console. "He's looking at jail time. He's just lucky he wasn't caught on the Arizona side of the border - they string 'em up by the balls. You planning on filing assault charges?"
"I - " She hadn't thought that far ahead. "I don't know. "
"You think about it, Caramelo. Get that pendejo Charlie to give you a day off for once, and come down to the station tomorrow." He tucked his notebook away. "And you save me a piece of that pie, next time we come by."
The flashing red lights of the cop car dwindled into the distance, heading for the faint glow of city lights on the horizon. The tow truck rumbled after, hauling her father's car off to the impound lot. Candy stood on the verge of the highway as they drove away, the warm breeze ruffling her hair. Temperatures in the desert dropped twenty degrees when the sun set, but that still made for a hot night. Her wrist throbbed, and her cheek ached with the memory of her father's hand - the cops had taken pictures of the bruises. Just in case. The idea of her father behind bars was a tight coil of emotion in her belly, and it hadn't unfolded itself enough yet for her to tell if it was happiness or misery or a little of both. Maybe that would come later, when it all seemed more real.
Spike ambled over, taking a last drag of his hand-rolled cigarette. "Bloody nuisance," he muttered. "Don't leave the state, my arse. I'm all for going back to the days when we didn't exist. We're off, then. I'd offer you a lift, but we're a bit short on passenger space, and I aim to make Sunnydale by dawn."
"That's OK," Candy said. You ran into a lot of weird shit on the road, but that didn't mean you had to take rides from them. "I'm probably going the other direction, anyhow. Monster.com says there's jobs in Flagstaff." She bit her lip, awkward. "Um. No offense with the... monster thing."
The grin was much more attractive on his human face. "None taken." Spike swung a leg over the handlebars of the motorcycle - for an old guy, he could fucking move. Jess was already bundled up in his leather jacket and helmet, riding pillion. Spike swivelled round and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "Come on, peanut, let's go home."
Candy wondered if someone would say those words to her some day. Or if she'd say them to someone else. She supposed she'd have to figure out where home was, first.
"Goodbye!" Jess yelled over the thunder of the engine, and the motorcycle roared away, Jess clinging like a burr to her father's back. Candy sat down on the top step of the diner's porch and thought about choices while the neon heartbeat pulsed in the front window. Stay or go. Run or stand. Press charges, or disappear into the night.
She was still sitting there two hours later, when Charlie drove up with Uncle Russell snoring in the back seat of the Prius.
"Hey," she said, as he got out of the car. "Welcome home."
END
By Barb C
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to me.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing/Characters: B/S implied; Spike and assorted OCs.
Synopsis: You run into a lot of weird shit on the road.
Author’s notes: Post-Gift AU. This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It's futurefic, taking place somewhen around 2040. Many thanks to betas deborahc, rainkatt, bruttimabuoni, slaymesoftly, kehf, and typographer, whose help was invaluable in smacking this story into shape.
Goffs, CA is an actual railroad ghost town, population 23, thirty-five miles east of Needles on historic Route 66. It's currently maintained as a museum by the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association. Charlie's Diner is my own invention.
"Candice? That you?"
Candy got goosebumps at the sound of that voice, tinny and far-off as it was. She'd just been standing beneath the draft of the diner's ancient swamp cooler, wishing for real cold, when her cell went off. Now she stood like an ice statue, here and now hushed by the past buzzing in her ear.
"Candice!" the voice crackled. "I know it's you. Damn it, girl, say something!"
"Hey, Candy," Charlie yelled, and the world started in yammering again - forks rattling on plates, grease sizzling in the fryer, Patsy Cline sobbing on the jukebox. "Them burgers won't serve themselves."
She yanked her earset off and grabbed the order in front of her - booth six, double-cheese and a sweating bottle of Pabst. Maybe she heard, "I'm still your father, Candice!" before the set hit her apron pocket, but maybe not. Didn't matter, anyway.
Outside the sunbaked flats of the Mojave stretched off towards the horizon, where jagged teeth of mountains nipped at the bright blue sky. The backwards scrollwork of neon in the diner's flyspecked window flickered "ARLIE'S DINER" in time to the pounding of her heart. Six o'clock in the evening, with the sun still a fat orange balloon in the western sky. Her shift didn't end till midnight. Long enough to make plans. Not that there was much to plan, because she'd long ago plotted out her just-in-cases, neat and easy. (No, not easy. Never easy. But neat, anyway.) Five minutes to ride her bike from the diner to the dilapidated motel she called home, another fifteen to grab the wad of cash under her mattress and stuff a change of clothes in her backpack. A couple of hours to bike into Needles, head down to the bus station and light out for somewhere that wasn't here.
It was too bad. Goffs wasn't much more than a wide spot in the road, but she liked it here. Rent was cheap and people minded their own business. She'd let that lull her into thinking she was safe.
Dinner rush was three truckers ducking the new weigh station on I-40, two sweating and bewildered Swedish tourists on the way to the Grand Canyon, and a family heading west to L.A. Candy took orders and flirted and recommended the chicken-fried steak, counting the minutes. She toyed with the thought of asking Charlie to give her a ride home, but set it aside. When she didn't show up for her shift tomorrow, she wanted her boss to be as surprised as anyone.
"Candy!" bellowed Charlie from the kitchen. The cook's broad shoulders filled the order window. Candy jumped, almost dropping a bottle of ketchup. "Get me another box of napkins from the storeroom - we're runnin' short!"
"Where's Alan?" she yelled back. That was busboy work. Might be her last night, but a girl had to stand on principle. "He was supposed to be in here an hour ago!"
"Just called in sick. Again. One more time and I'm gonna fire his skinny ass." Charlie shook his head and stuffed one straying dreadlock back into his hairnet. "God damn, just this once, don't argue with me, girl. I already got me a headache."
Oh, what the hell. It was her last night. "Seeing as you ask so nice..."
The storeroom was out back, a one-room adobe building slowly crumbling in on itself under long-wearing years of sun and wind and infrequent rain. Candy trudged around the side of the diner, memorizing every curlicue of peeling paint, every scraggly weed growing in the cracks of the parking lot asphalt. Anyone who bitched about the swamp cooler, she thought, just needed to take a walk outside. Even now, with the sun skimming the mountaintops and the spidery branches of the creosote painting long blue shadows across the sand, the heat smacked you in the face like a hundred-and-twenty degree sledgehammer. Sweat dried as soon as it sprang up on her brow. This part of living in Goffs she definitely wouldn't miss.
The storeroom windows were opaque with dust, but Candy caught a glimpse of the pale blur of a face behind one of them, quickly ducking away as she approached. That wasn't good. Shit. What if it was him, hiding out in there? Calling her from a hundred yards away, just to mess with her head?
No. If he were here, he'd be marching in and making a scene. Panicking over nothing was gonna get her in more trouble than anything he could do. Climbing the worn sandstone steps to the storeroom door, Candy slipped her earset on, thumb poised over the speed dial for 911, and eased the door open.
For just a second before she flicked on the lights, Candy caught a flash of eyes in the darkness, pupils reflecting copper and green like an animal's. There was a shriek and a crash, and half a pallet of industrial-grade toilet paper toppled over and bounced every which way, tumbling across the concrete floor. "Who's there?" Candy demanded. "Speak up or I'm calling the cops right now!" Empty threat when it would take the cops at least twenty minutes to get here from Needles, but people who hid out in storerooms weren't always that bright.
"Please," a small voice said. "Don't. Don't call the police. They'll tell him I'm here."
Sprawled on her butt in the corner, behind a barricade of TP, was a girl, maybe a couple of years younger than Candy herself - no more than fifteen. She was wearing a grubby pink hoodie and grubbier jeans, and had a backpack shaped like a cartoon cat slung over one shoulder. Blue eyes stared up at Candy from beneath a tangle of sandy hair, defiant and terrified. Beneath the smudges of dirt, her face was pale as milk.
"Oh, shit,," said Candy, exasperated. She planted her fists on her hips. "Girl, what do you think you're doing here?"
"Please, just a little bit longer." The kid scrambled to her feet and wrapped twiggy arms around her skinny torso. "I'll be gone the minute the sun sets! Or - or I'll wash dishes for you! Or anything! I - really, anything, just don't tell anyone I'm here! My dad's looking for me, and I can't go back with him! I can't!" Her white-rimmed gaze darted towards the window, and her voice dropped to a husky, miserable whisper. "He's - he's a monster."
Candy dropped to her haunches, hands loose between her knees. Unthreatening, she hoped. She'd felt real fear often enough to recognize it now. "Look, I know what's that's like. Did he hit you? If your old man's trouble..." Who was she kidding? She was no hero. Just a traveler a little farther down the same road. "I... I can call the police."
"No, no, you can't do that!" The girl backed up against the storeroom wall, shaking her head violently. "They're... my sister's a cop, and she thinks - " She gulped hard, fighting back tears. "She thinks it's my fault. She'll make me go home, and...and my mom will kill me."
"It's not your fault," Candy snapped. "You better believe that."
The kid's big doubtful eyes said she wasn't buying it. Candy wasn't sure she bought it herself. How often had she lain awake at night, wondering if things would have gone better if only she'd said or done something different? "Fine," she sighed. "You can stay here. But you've got to be gone before midnight." Because the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'm going to be long gone by then myself. She pulled a carton of napkins down off the shelf, balancing it on one hip. "Pick up all that toilet paper you knocked over, and then come inside. I'll get you a meal before you go, anyway."
The girl wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve (weird, wearing a hoodie in this heat) and nodded. Odds were the kid wouldn't take her up on it, Candy knew, but she felt better for making the offer.
Charlie was on his cell when she got back to the diner. "What? What for? God damn it, you promised me - well, where the fuck are you?" Through the order window she could see him waving a spatula around, arguing with thin air. Schizos had it easy these days - everyone just assumed you were taking a call. She knew that tone of voice. Must be Russell. Russell was Charlie's uncle, and once a month, like clockwork, he'd get dragged in on a drunk and disorderly and call Charlie to come bail him out. Just her luck he picked tonight to do it.
Or maybe it was luck. If Charlie left early, she could get the kid on her way and make her own escape early, too.
Candy kept an ear out as she did the rounds, booth one to booth eight, Ready to order yet, oh, come on, you've got room for dessert, refill on that coffee, hon? Funny how everyone assumed you were older than they were if you just called them 'hon.'
"Jesus fucking Christ," Charlie swore, slamming out through the swinging door. He ripped off his grease-stained apron, shaking his dreads out of the hairnet. "That bastard knows I'm short-handed this week. Bullhead fucking City, he says! Can you handle the grill by yourself, Candy, or do I gotta close up?"
"No problem." By tomorrow morning, Charlie would be even more short-handed. She felt a little guilty about that. For all the yelling, he was a pretty decent boss, a pretty nice guy. She waved at the half-empty row of red vinyl booths. "Anyway, it'll be dead once this bunch clears out." It was always dead, this time of year. Any time of year. Two or three customers in a long hot afternoon, a dozen at lunch or dinner if they were lucky. That was one reason she'd come here, to the ass-end of nowhere, to a run-down diner on the outskirts of an all-but-ghost town on a potholed stretch of highway that nobody drove anymore. Get your kicks on Route 66.
"Sure you'll be OK?" Charlie asked.
There was worry in his dark eyes, but kindness, too, and for a minute she thought about telling him everything. But Charlie had his own problems, and she'd been burned before, by people who seemed to be decent bosses and nice guys. So she grinned wide and happy. "I'm a big girl," she said. "I can handle it."
Charlie sighed, scratching his belly. "Russell's such a fucking screwup," he muttered. "Someday I swear I'm gonna let him rot in there. But what can you do?"
Candy shrugged, commiserating. "Every family's got one."
She watched Charlie chug out of the parking lot in his crappy old reconditioned Prius, baked so long in the California sun you couldn't tell what color it had been when it left the factory. One by one she rang the truckers up, dodging the inevitable attempt to pinch her ass - sometimes she thought about telling them she was still six months shy of eighteen, but with her luck, they'd just find that a turn-on. She pointed the tourists down Mountain Springs towards I-40, and sent the family on its bickering way. The kid never showed, and Candy wasn't sure if she was worried or relieved about that.
The sun was balancing on the horizon as she wiped down the tables, started up the dishwasher, and totaled up the day's receipts. She'd leave the place tidy, at least. She owed Charlie that much. She was about to turn off the neon and flip the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED when the guy on the motorcycle roared up.
For a second, Candy could have sworn that wisps of smoke rose from his shoulders as he swung off the cycle and strode across the parking lot and up onto the porch. Had to be the heat waves off the asphalt. At first glance he could have passed for any of the grizzled old bikers who blew into the diner on the hot desert wind and blew out again in a hail of gravel. Black leather and denim from head to toe, not an inch of skin showing anywhere, and everything he was wearing had seen a lot of miles. The weird thing was, he was wearing a helmet - the kind that covered his whole head like an astronaut, with a visor so dark she couldn't see his face at all. The hard-core bikers never wore helmets if they could get away with it, even these days, with everyone worried about skin cancer and the ozone layer.
He loosened the clasps of his helmet and paused in the shade of the porch for a long moment, like he was listening for something, or - she had a flashback to a scene from an old movie - smelling for something. Candy thought about just telling him to shove off, she wasn't firing up the grill again. "We're closing," she shouted through the door.
"Only need a minute, love."
Maybe it was the accent, or the weary slump of his shoulders through the glass, or the fear he'd remember the frustration of losing his dinner, and remember her, too, if anyone happened to ask. More likely she just didn't want to let go of her life again, not quite yet. Whatever it was, after a moment's hesitation, Candy opened the door. She'd just have to feed him and kick him out as fast as she could. "Come on in, then."
He gave a tired little chuckle, as if that was some kind of inside joke, and stepped across the threshold. When he unsnapped the helmet and tossed it on the counter, his lean, high-cheekboned face was as far from a biker’s tan as you could get, pale as old bone bleaching under the desert sun. He looked like he'd seen a lot of miles, himself - couple days' worth of stubble, and shadows beneath his bright blue eyes you could lose a Buick in. He took a deep breath, as if it were the first he'd had in awhile. He raked a hand through his hair and dropped onto a stool. “Coffee, black,” he said. “An’ a cheeseburger. Rare as you can make it, and hold the rabbit food.” He eyed the dessert rack. "And maybe a piece of that cherry pie."
“I can make it pretty rare,” Candy said, pouring coffee. Huh. There wasn’t any club insignia on his jacket.
The man grunted. “Threaten it with a match from afar and that’s enough for me.”
She kept a covert watch as the guy peeled off jacket and gloves and propped his elbows on the counter, rubbing his eyes like they hurt him. He was on the small side, only a couple of inches taller than she was, wiry and fine-boned. No tattoos on what she could see of his pale, muscular arms, which was another strike against the old-biker theory. It was hard to tell exactly how old he actually was - his salt-and-pepper curls were still thick, his shoulders still solid, and the deep laugh-lines around his eyes and mouth didn’t detract from the sense of coiled energy about him. His hand on the coffee cup looked strong enough to shatter it if he’d wanted to.
Despite the little belly stretching his t-shirt taut above his belt buckle, he looked like he could take on someone double his size and not think twice about it. After long enough on the road, you got a sense for which guys were dangerous, and this one didn't have the vibe. It was just, somehow, Candy felt like he should have the vibe.
"Looking for a girl," he said abruptly. "Runaway. 'Bout fifteen."
Candy stiffened, taking a harder grip on the knife. Shrugged, and sliced pie. "I see a lot of girls. Boys, too. After awhile they all sorta mush together."
"Got a photo." He held up a Blackberry, flashed a picture. Cleaner, happier, and not quite as skinny, but it was the girl in the storeroom, all right. "Name's Jess. Jessica. Might be going by something else. She's my youngest. Got reason to think she's come this way. Seen her?"
Eyes stared at her out of the Blackberry screen, blue as her father's. Honey-brown curls, darkening from little-kid blonde. The color this guy's hair might have been before he started going grey, maybe. Besides that there wasn't much resemblance. Kid must take after her mother. The one she'd claimed would kill her. Candy looked from the daughter's eyes back to the father's. "Most times, when a kid runs away from home, there's a reason."
There was more challenge in her tone than she intended, but the guy didn't twitch. He looked straight at her, straight into her, with those eyes like the Mojave sky. "Family matter, pet. Wouldn't say that's any of your business. "
"Yeah," Candy said viciously, slamming down the slice of pie. "It never is."
When she went back to the grill, she found that there was no more hamburger thawed, and Charlie'd locked the door to the freezer when he left. Fuck. There was a spare key in the storeroom. She could warn the kid about what was going on, and get this creep on his way as fast as possible. "Back in a minute," she said, and swept around the counter without waiting for an answer.
She circled the creep's hulking old antique of a full-combustion motorcycle. Why was she doing this? If the kid was smart, she was undoubtedly long gone. Every instinct told her to grab her bike and run, get while the getting was good, and never mind whether creepy old biker guy remembered her disappearing act or not.
The storeroom was dark again, one more reason to believe the kid had made herself scarce. "Jessica?" Candy whispered, fumbling for the light switch in the gloom. "Jess? Your dad's here. I'll see if I can get him gone, but - "
Jessica was still huddled in the corner. She flinched as the lights came on. "Oh, no!" she moaned. "He'll sniff me out for sure. What am I gonna do? I can't leave till it's dark!"
"What do you mean, you can't - "
"He's older than me! He can stand it longer!"
Before she could ask what the heck that meant, Candy heard the rumble of tires on gravel. She walked over to the window, scrubbed dirt off the glass. Another car was pulling into the parking lot. Shit. She should have turned off the sign. She didn't have time for this. She plucked the spare freezer key from the rack beside the door and slid it between her fingers, hesitated, and turned back to the girl. The slam of a car door, the crunch of footsteps. "Fine, whatever. Do what you want."
She turned to head back to the diner, only to be brought up short by the man standing in the shed doorway.
"Candice," her father said. "It's been awhile."
Candy took a step backwards, flicked her earset on, and punched the speed dial. "I just called the police," she said tightly. "You'd better just leave."
"If I leave, you're coming with me." His voice cracked on the words.
"I don't have to do a damn thing on your say-so. Not any more."
Her father's jaw worked. There was grey in his hair, now, too, and he didn't look so good - cheeks sallow, eyes bloodshot. Tremor in his hands. She could smell the stale beer. The little girl still living inside of her wept for him. It had only been two years, hadn't it? Seemed longer.
"You can forget that custody bullshit. Your mother's dead," he said, like he was telling her the milk had gone off.
It was a punch in the gut, but she was already reeling. What right did he have, to stand there with tears in his eyes? She gathered memory like armor, hurt like a sword. "Not me that killed her," she fired back.
His fist shot out, smacking her hard across the jaw. Candy yelled in pain and her earset went flying as the operator singsonged, "911. What is your emergency?"
"I'm calling from Charlie's Diner in Goffs, Route 66 - " Candy screamed at the spinning earset, before her father's boot snapped it in two. Callused fingers curled round her wrist, hard enough to bruise.
"No more arguing, Candice. I'm taking you home."
"Hey! You let her go!" Jess was on her feet, brandishing her stupid kitty-cat backpack as if she was going to chuck it at someone's head. Her eyes were a fulvous yellow in the fading sunset light. "Let her go, or I'll - "
"You'll shut your mouth," her father snapped. "This is a family matter." He wrenched Candy towards the door. Candy wrenched back, fear lending her strength.
Something happened to Jess's face then, something awful. "I said," she growled, "Let her go!"
Candy didn't see her move, but Jess was right beside them, golden eyes flashing beneath ridges of bone, fangs distorting her little-girl face. Little-girl hands grabbed her father's arm, and he screamed as bone shattered beneath little-girl fingers. He dropped Candy's wrist, and she collapsed to the dusty concrete. In a flash Jess had her father pinned to the wall.
"Jess!" Candy gasped. Shit, shitshitshit, she should have realized! Jess had practically spelled it out, refusing to leave the shed till sunset. But the middle of the Mojave wasn't vampire country! The bloodsuckers usually stuck to the big cities. "Please don't - "
Tawny eyes stared at her from an inhuman face. "Told you my Daddy was a monster, didn't I?" Jess said. "I am, too." She ran her tongue over her fangs. "And I'm hungry."
Candy's father's face was waxy, his eyes wild. "Candy, honey - please..."
"Shut up," Jess snarled. She yanked him down, jaws stretched wide, fangs glistening, and scrunched her eyes shut. Nerving herself to bite. "I'm evil."
"Maybe so, but I wouldn't do that if I were you, pet."
Candy blinked stupidly at the silhouette in the doorway. Jess's dad lounged against the doorpost, arms crossed, bone-white skin stark against black cotton. There were definitely wisps of smoke rising from his head and shoulders, but they fizzled out as the last sliver of sunlight winked out on the horizon.
"Daddy..." Jess's lower lip quivered, but she didn't loosen her grip on Candy's father. "Why not? I'm a vampire. That's what vampires do. We bite people." A little sob shook her. "And then the Slayer kills us."
"Vampires do a good many things." Her father strode across the shed, silent as the oncoming night. He lifted one hand, pale fingers caressing Jess's pale cheek. "Your mum's not going to kill you, love. You left the berk still breathing, after all. If barely." There was a note of something like pride in his voice, and Candy wasn't sure if it was because Jess hadn't killed someone, or because she almost had. He cocked an eyebrow at Candy's father. "This chap, now, that might be a different story."
Jess's thin shoulders were trembling. "I liked it," she whispered. "I want to do again."
"'Course you do, peanut," her father replied, matter-of-fact. "The bugger of it is, you can't have both. You've got to decide which you like better. Tonight, and every night, for the rest of your life. You can have the kill. Or you can have everything else."
Crouched on the cool cement, Candy watched the struggle flicker across Jess's face, eyes flashing gold and blue and gold again. She watched the sweat roll down her own father's face, watched his chest heaving, the short panicked breaths of a man who knows Death is passing close by. Outside the hard bright desert stars were starting to prick the darkening sky. And then Jess's features melted into human form again, fangs receding, ridges smoothing away into the furrowed brow of a fifteen-year-old girl. She dropped Candy's father and flung herself at her own.
"I want a chip in my head!" Jess wailed. "Like Mr. Lawson has, so I don't have to think!"
Jess's father caught her up in a fierce embrace, murmuring endearments as she sobbed into his shoulder. "There, sweet, there, we'll talk about it once we're home. You have any idea how often I've fucked it up, over the years? Right now it's time we called your mum and let her know I've found you. She's fretting herself sick."
Jess snuffled and wiped her nose. "Mom's really not going to slay me?"
Her father looked pained. "Think I can guarantee that much. Tan your hide and ground you for a year I won't make bets on." He nodded at Candy, like she was an afterthought. "Thought I was the villain of the piece, yeh? No hard feelings. Been plenty of times you wouldn't be wrong. Money for the pie's on the counter. Keep the change."
"Wait," Candy said, scrambling to her feet. "You can't - "
Slumped against the wall, clutching his broken arm, her father hissed, "Keep quiet and let 'em go! They'll kill us soon as look at us! You got to drive me to a hospital!"
Jess's father turned, bent down and lifted her father one-handed to his feet. He sure as hell had the vibe now. "Don't think the lady has to do anything, mate."
"She's my daughter, damn it!" There was a beseeching note in her father's voice. "You've got a girl of your own. You understand. I never meant her any harm. They need a little discipline when they run wild, is all."
The other man's face changed - like Jess's, but a million times worse: scales and horns to go with the fangs and ridges, claws erupting from his fingers like ebony scimitars. "I understand," he rumbled. "Better 'n you can possibly imagine. How good it feels when they cry. I'm a very bad man, mate. When I understand you, you're bloody well fucked." He glanced at Candy, leonine eyes lazy. "Your girl here did a good turn for my Jess, or tried to. Reckon I owe her one."
"Don't... please don't kill him," Candy gasped, small and faint.
The vampire grinned, an expression Candy would remember in nightmares for a long time to come. "He's not worth the trouble killing him'd bring. But I can make him wish I had. What's your pleasure, pet?"
There was part of her wanted to say Hurt him. Hurt him bad. Hurt him like he hurt me. And not watch, but listen to the screams, maybe, from safely outside. But what he'd said to Jess was right: if she took this one thing, she'd be giving up everything else. She wanted to think her choice came of being a good person, someone who could forgive and move on and live a life that was better than what she'd run away from. And maybe it was, a little, but mostly it was because the police were on their way, and the last thing she wanted was a felony committed on Charlie's property. Candy shook her head. "No. Don't. Just... stay here till the police come, okay?"
The monstrous features melted away as if they'd never been. Jess's father glanced at hers, a glint of amusement in his eyes. Getting off on the other man's fear. "You heard the lady," he drawled. "May as well get comfortable."
****
There were a lot of questions, and maybe someday Candy would regret not asking them. She was pretty sure Jess and her father weren't standard-issue vampires. For now she was just grateful that they seemed willing to nosh on ground beef instead of her jugular. She made them burgers while they waited for the police to show up, and they wolfed them down all but raw, sopping up the warm red juice from their plates.
Jess's dad turned out to be called Spike, though the ID he showed the police said something else. He told the cops it was him who'd broken her father's arm, trying to keep him off Candy and Jess - it just seemed easier that way, and it wasn't, as Spike pointed out, as if he wouldn't have done it with pleasure. Even if her dad gave a different story, with his blood alcohol level, no one was gonna believe him.
"I - you mean I don't have to go back with him? What happens now?" Candy asked, bewildered.
Officer Garcia closed his notebook. The tow truck's headlights silhouetted the defeated outline of her father's shoulders in the back seat of the police car, and Spike talking to Garcia's partner. "Why would you have to go back? Your ID says you're twenty, and I got no reason to think different." His eyes were very bright in the creases of his round cheeks. "Do I?"
Candy gulped and shook her head.
"Your papa, though...if we take him in on suspicion of DUI, it could be his third conviction in the last two years." Garcia tapped something into his palm console. "He's looking at jail time. He's just lucky he wasn't caught on the Arizona side of the border - they string 'em up by the balls. You planning on filing assault charges?"
"I - " She hadn't thought that far ahead. "I don't know. "
"You think about it, Caramelo. Get that pendejo Charlie to give you a day off for once, and come down to the station tomorrow." He tucked his notebook away. "And you save me a piece of that pie, next time we come by."
The flashing red lights of the cop car dwindled into the distance, heading for the faint glow of city lights on the horizon. The tow truck rumbled after, hauling her father's car off to the impound lot. Candy stood on the verge of the highway as they drove away, the warm breeze ruffling her hair. Temperatures in the desert dropped twenty degrees when the sun set, but that still made for a hot night. Her wrist throbbed, and her cheek ached with the memory of her father's hand - the cops had taken pictures of the bruises. Just in case. The idea of her father behind bars was a tight coil of emotion in her belly, and it hadn't unfolded itself enough yet for her to tell if it was happiness or misery or a little of both. Maybe that would come later, when it all seemed more real.
Spike ambled over, taking a last drag of his hand-rolled cigarette. "Bloody nuisance," he muttered. "Don't leave the state, my arse. I'm all for going back to the days when we didn't exist. We're off, then. I'd offer you a lift, but we're a bit short on passenger space, and I aim to make Sunnydale by dawn."
"That's OK," Candy said. You ran into a lot of weird shit on the road, but that didn't mean you had to take rides from them. "I'm probably going the other direction, anyhow. Monster.com says there's jobs in Flagstaff." She bit her lip, awkward. "Um. No offense with the... monster thing."
The grin was much more attractive on his human face. "None taken." Spike swung a leg over the handlebars of the motorcycle - for an old guy, he could fucking move. Jess was already bundled up in his leather jacket and helmet, riding pillion. Spike swivelled round and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "Come on, peanut, let's go home."
Candy wondered if someone would say those words to her some day. Or if she'd say them to someone else. She supposed she'd have to figure out where home was, first.
"Goodbye!" Jess yelled over the thunder of the engine, and the motorcycle roared away, Jess clinging like a burr to her father's back. Candy sat down on the top step of the diner's porch and thought about choices while the neon heartbeat pulsed in the front window. Stay or go. Run or stand. Press charges, or disappear into the night.
She was still sitting there two hours later, when Charlie drove up with Uncle Russell snoring in the back seat of the Prius.
"Hey," she said, as he got out of the car. "Welcome home."
END