Fic: The Soul Lies Down (5/?)
Title: The Soul Lies Down (5/?)
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~6,200 this chapter (~14,300 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to Angearia's Fin Amour)
Notes: Many thanks to Yavannie82, Angearia and Bewildered for beta work <3
5
Dusk and Dawn
The sun was setting as Buffy walked home from the Magic Box, a thin scattering of clouds catching the pinkish orange of the last rays of light. For a moment she was caught in the memory of sand, cast in the same colors, the bittersweet morning of her daughter’s birth. More sweet than bitter, she had to admit, but still… there was sadness there, and she took a moment to feel it as her feet carried her home. She was doing that more and more since Dawn had come along, just feeling. Like some kind of long ago luxury, recently rediscovered.
It had been a long day, with summer classes and a Scooby meeting at the shop, and she was eager to get home and hold her baby. Besides, she was due a celebration. The last of the Knights of Byzantium had finally left the area, repelled by Willow’s confusion spell, and that meant Dawn’s safety had just increased by the amount of ten. Or something. She was a lot safer, was the point. There would be no more attacks on the house, no more agonizing over what to do with human enemies. Buffy might even take the night off from patrolling, spend it eating ice cream in front of the TV with her mom and daughter. That would be pretty near heaven in Buffy Summers Land right about now.
But walking up Revello Drive, the house just coming into sight, her hyperfocus on her destination brought with it the creeping sense that something wasn’t quite right. It was a breezy night, leaves rustling in trees. Mrs. Davis’s dog barked as she passed, but the street was otherwise quiet. And yet, her stomach clenched uneasily. Pace quickening as she craned to see the house better, it still took her a moment to work out what was bothering her.
Behind closed shades, the light was on in the nursery, and a silhouette passed across the window.
No. No no no no no no no.
Buffy ran, reaching for the short-sword she’d taken to keeping in her backpack along with her stakes and college books. The knights were supposed to be gone, damn it - Willow had done a locator spell this evening and zip, nada, no more medieval costume brigade. It could just be her mom of course, but she almost always left it dark in there once she’d put Dawnie down, and besides, something was telling her otherwise. Something she had long ago learned to listen to.
As she shouldered her way through the front door and barreled up the stairs, that something coalesced into the warning prickle across her skin that meant vampire! Crap, not the knights at all. I’ll kill you. If you touch her I’ll kill you. Screw it, I’ll kill you anyway. And then I’ll kill whoever let you in my house.
Slamming the nursery door open she yanked the vampire away from the crib and tossed him one-handed into the wall. He snarled, bouncing to his feet, and Buffy raised her sword and saw red.
Then… black?
The blade came to a screeching halt half an inch from the vampire’s neck. Shocked blue eyes stared back at her. Eyes she hadn’t thought she’d ever see again.
“Spike?”
“Hello, cutie.”
She lost her voice for a moment, breathing hard. Dawn had woken with the disturbance, and was starting to fuss. How could… it wasn’t possible.
“What-? How-? What?”
“Buffy?” her mom called, coming up the stairs after her. “What on earth is going on up there?”
Her eyes flicked between the door, the whimpering baby and the vampire panting with unneeded breath. God, if he wasn’t real he was a damn good imitation.
“Buffy,” he said, with an agonized look at the crib, just as her mom ran in. Buffy lowered her sword as she turned to face her mom, bewildered and unaccountably embarrassed to be found in that position. Dawn took that moment to begin wailing in earnest, but before she could turn back to the crib to comfort her, Spike had scooped her up, holding her against one black-clad shoulder with surprising ease.
“Huh,” Buffy said dumbly, the first thing that came to mind. “You’re braver than Xander.”
Dawnie wasn’t exactly a difficult baby, but when she was newborn she’d had a strange aversion to being held by anyone who wasn’t Buffy or Joyce. Even now, at three months, it was pretty much fifty-fifty whether she’d coo or cry for the others, and mostly only Tara had the patience to deal when she was grizzly. Plus, once she really got going, that was usually the cue to hand her back to Buffy.
Spike… Spike was holding Dawn comfortably, murmuring softly against the side of her downy little head as though he soothed babies every day - uh, night - and slowly, Dawn’s cries were beginning to settle. It was kind of miraculous. In more ways than one.
“Spike!” Mom said, hand going to her heart. “What are you doing here?”
Ignoring Joyce, eyes meeting Buffy’s, Spike raised his scarred eyebrow at her. “You really surprised by that, Slayer?”
She didn’t know what to say. Surprise didn’t begin to cover it. And added to that, there was something… arresting about seeing the person she’d thought had died to save them holding her daughter in his big hands like she fit there.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Mom continued, “I’m happy to see you. But aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
Buffy tossed her hair over her shoulder, pulling herself together. “My thoughts exactly,” she said, holding her arms out for Dawn and raising her own eyebrows at Spike expectantly. “This had better be good.”
She absolutely did not linger when his skin touched hers as he passed back their precious cargo.
*
“So let me get this straight,” Buffy said three hours later. “You met my daughter, who came back in time, patched you up, and sent you back to Sunnydale. So that you could save the world.”
“About covers it, yeah.”
It was incredible, almost unbelievable, except that somehow it wasn’t. After a mystical pregnancy and facing down a god, this barely registered a three on the Richter scale of weirdness. And by now Spike was quite possibly on some kind of a roll, world saving-wise. But. Dawnie.
“She’s just a baby,” Buffy said, stroking her head. They were sitting at the kitchen island, empty cocoa mugs on the counter. Her mom had given up a few minutes earlier and gone to bed, claiming a headache at all this talk of future granddaughters, and now Buffy was nursing the baby beneath her blanket, trying not to feel self-conscious.
“That’s where the whole time-travel thing comes in, pet,” Spike said wryly. “She’s still the key.”
Buffy sighed. “I know. I just…” I just wish she didn’t have to be. But it was hard to admit it, because that meant facing the danger Dawn was in. Would continue to be in. “I never really appreciated what I put my mom through, before. With the slaying? To me it just felt like she was being unreasonable, overreacting. Now it’s Dawn, and I...”
“I know,” Spike said, and when she looked up Buffy caught his hand moving awkwardly back around his mug, as though he’d been reaching out to touch her before thinking better of it. “Thing is… thing is, she was incredible, Buffy. Smart, and beautiful, and completely fearless. Put me in my place right off the bat.” He was looking at her in that way he had - that banked flame, soft and warm - that used to unnerve her so badly. “She was a lot like you. A fighter, in her own way, but sweet too.”
“I am not-” she started, before realizing Spike was laughing at her.
“Oh you are, Slayer. Not in quite the same way, but I don’t mind.” Then, he sobered, and her throat constricted as if in premonition of what he would say. “I missed you.” He held her eyes a little too long, before blinking and looking away. “She said there was no flow of time where she took me, but it still felt… How long was I gone?”
“Thirteen weeks two days.” His head whipped up, surprise warring with pleasure as he visibly tried not to smile, and Buffy rushed to add, “It’s her age. I just… keep track… automatically.”
“Never said otherwise,” he agreed peaceably, but it was suddenly hard to meet his eyes. “Wasn’t that long for me, but it was enough.”
They talked for a long time, the mommy part of her eager to hear every last detail about the woman her baby would grow up to be, the slayer part needing to hear everything he could tell her about the future they were supposed to avert. But the sky lightening outside the window still took her by surprise.
“Dawn’s coming,” Spike said, as they both turned to contemplate the twilight. “Better be off soon. You think my crypt’s still in one piece?”
“Your TV’s gone, but the fridge is still there,” Buffy said without thinking.
“Is that so?”
“What?” she snapped, realizing her mistake. Too late. She squinted at him, daring him to make something of it.
“Easy, Slayer,” he said. “We were getting along for a while there. No call to go ruining it.”
“Oh please. We were not getting along,” she scoffed. “I was simply… interrogating you. So I can report back to Giles.”
“Lacking your usual bite there, love. Must be tired, what with the staying up all night chatting with your mortal enemy.”
“Shut up, Spike.”
“Points for effort,” he said with mock seriousness. “Get some sleep, Buffy. We can pick up this charming repartee later.”
He rose and turned to head out through the kitchen door, and maybe it was his leaving, or maybe it was his coming back, but abruptly she remembered lying incapacitated in the desert, newborn Dawn out of reach between her thighs on his leather duster. Remembered the sound of footsteps in the sand, and the irrational hope that he had somehow survived both the chip and the knights, and that he was coming back to her.
“Spike, wait,” she blurted, then hovered on the words she’d meant to say, unable to find a way to actually say them that wouldn’t strip her bare.
“Slayer?”
“Um…” She couldn’t do it. “Your, your duster. I still have it.”
He cocked his head, studying her. “Keep it for Dawn,” he said. “Girl gets born on it, I think she can lay claim.”
Buffy nodded, and looked down at the baby, because that was easier. Swiftly, he walked over and she braced herself for his touch, however it would come, but all he did was stand close and stroke Dawn’s rounded cheek with the pad of his black-polished forefinger.
Suddenly, it was easy.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Spike - thank you.”
He stared for a moment, then just nodded. “Guess the Watcher’ll be wanting to question me. I’ll stop by again tonight, shall I?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”
Then he was gone, and Buffy went to call Giles.
Afterwards, as the sun rose, she sat in her rocking chair in the nursery and waited for the baby to wake for her morning feed, trying to let herself just feel, process the gamut of emotions she’d gone through that night, or… she realized… tried not to go through. She’d just gotten good at being in touch with her own heart, and now, somehow, it wasn’t as simple as it had been last night. But she could still do this, her new habit felt too good to give up just because Spike was back from the dead.
She laughed silently. Just back from the dead. No big. Not by Sunnydale standards, anyway. Damn him.
She felt… confused. Bewildered. Shocked and delighted by what he’d said of her daughter. Worried too, for herself and for Dawnie. And… happy. Kind of pleased to see him, annoying smartass that he was. Now that he knew some part of their future he was going to be even more annoying than usual, she just knew it, but even so, she realized - she felt glad he hadn’t dusted, and that he had come back after all, even if it was three months late.
That thought took a while to digest, but by the time Dawnie was done nursing, Buffy was practically the walking comatose and couldn’t think at all anymore. She fell asleep the moment she hit the mattress, and didn’t wake until her mom brought Dawn in, fussing for her next feed.
*
“Well yes, it is quite a remarkable story,” Giles said, giving his glasses a thoughtful polish in the middle of Buffy’s living room that evening.
“Story? You don’t believe him?” Buffy asked. Spike had repeated their conversation from the night before, somewhat abbreviated but covering all the major plot points, and then she’d sent him on his way so that they could talk about him behind his back. For the first time ever, it didn’t sit well with her.
“You do?” Xander practically spluttered.
“Buffy, this is Spike we’re talking about,” Willow added. “Still part of the fangy brethren, not exactly known for their truth telling ways.”
“I don’t know,” Tara said slowly. “He’s usually pretty honest.”
“Yeah,” Buffy snorted. “Spike’d think it was way too much effort to think up something this elaborate.”
“When I was evil, I used to tell the truth all the time,” Anya said. “There’s nothing like the truth for unsettling people.”
“Well consider me unsettled, Ahn,” Xander said with a grimace, “because if little Dawnie’s gonna…” he trailed off, gesticulating helplessly at where Dawn lay on her play mat, chubby little legs pumping like she was doing the backstroke. “Deeply, deeply unsettled.”
Giles turned to her. “Buffy, what do you think?”
“Did you see the marks on his right arm?” she asked. “Spike said it was severed and then reattached, so with vampire healing… the scarring looks about right. How else could he have got that? And I know… I know he must have been pretty badly beaten up, because not one of those ren fair rejects made it past him that night, and you saw how many there were. As for the rest… He has to have gotten out of that desert somehow.” She thought of his face, his eyes, as he’d told her his tale last night. “It feels true. It feels like he’s telling the truth.”
“You trust him.” It wasn’t a question, and Buffy was relieved not to have to answer it, but later as she was getting ready to leave for patrol and Giles was making tea for he and Joyce, he brought it up again.
“Giles,” she said, “he’s not that complicated a guy. It’s pretty easy to figure out when he’s up to something and this is not that. Besides, after what he did for me and Dawn, don’t you think he’s earned it?”
“You may be right,” Giles conceded, “but Buffy, he’s still a vampire and a soulless one at that. Just be careful. I can’t shake the sense that there’s something he’s not telling us.”
Buffy frowned. “What do you mean?”
Giles wrapped the string of the teabag around his finger and bobbed it up and down in the teacup, watching it with a frown.
“You said you found him in the nursery?”
“…Yes?”
“Well don’t you think that’s a little strange? If he had nothing to hide, why not come in the front door? For some reason I have yet to fathom, your mother has always harbored a soft spot for him that seems, even more incredibly, to be reciprocated. Why not greet her properly and save everyone the shock of finding him where you did?”
“I never said he didn’t have impulse control issues,” Buffy said, shrugging. “I think he just wanted to see Dawn. Kinda makes sense, having spent so much time with future-her. And he’s really good with her, you know. Calmed her down from a crying fit and everything.”
Giles glanced up sharply. “You let a vampire soothe your baby?”
“Let is a strong word.” She paused, remembering the way he’d held Dawn close. The same way Buffy held her close. Like she was treasured. Like he would shelter her. “He was really gentle with her, Giles. I think he… he cares about her. What? You have disapproval face on.”
“Buffy,” Giles said, in his Gilesy, making-it-perfectly-clear-I’m-valiantly-holding-in-a-sigh way. “Dawn is your child and it’s only natural that you expect everyone to find her as remarkable and fascinating as you do, but Spike is a vampire - a demon - you must see how odd it is that he would feel anything for her except hunger.”
“Oh, ew. Giles.”
“Well think about it, Buffy.”
Something gave way. “I have, more than you know. There were a couple of weeks after the desert when I could barely think about anything else, and you wanna know what I realized? Spike was ready to die for Dawn - he practically fried his own brains out trying to protect her - because he loved me. Because our lives were more important to him than his own. I didn’t want to admit it but in the end there’s no other explanation. So yeah, maybe he’s not telling us everything, but if you honestly think he’s any danger to Dawn now-”
Giles held up a hand and said hastily, “No, no, of course not. I just want you to be on your guard. Whatever odyssey Spike has undergone over the last three months, there’s something about it he’s keeping back, I’m almost certain of it. And I have to wonder why.”
“Fine,” Buffy said with a tight smile, reaching for the kitchen door, “I’ll ask him. Will that make you happy?”
She just caught his answer before the door closed behind her. He sounded weary. “Ecstatic.”
*
Spike was lurking behind the tree out front, of course. Of course. The stab of annoyance as she hauled him out was so familiar she felt her spirits buoyed immediately.
“Back to this already?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Slayer.”
“Right, creepo guy, sure you don’t.” How good was vampire hearing, anyway? Had he been listening in to their Spike-centric discussion ever since he’d left? He was watching her warily, tense and trying not to show it. Without his duster it was a lot easier to see the set of his shoulders, the lines of his body. “Come on, I’ve got to patrol,” she said, wanting to get away from the house for this, and started walking without waiting for his answer. After a moment she felt him fall in beside her, a shadow at her left.
They walked towards Shady Rest without talking. Sometimes being quiet with Spike was easy, but tonight his silence was putting her on edge. He had the air of a man waiting for the firing squad, and she couldn’t figure out why. It was irritating.
“What’s got you all clammed up?” she asked lightly, watching her feet on the uneven ground. “Cat got your tongue?”
Spike huffed. “Don’t mix your metaphors, Slayer,” he muttered. “Said my piece already, mic’s all yours.”
“Okay, but-”
“It’s just, before, with Glory, I was useful, right? And what happens now? Danger’s gone, let’s give old Spike the boot.”
“What are you saying?” Buffy asked, stopping so she could look at him properly. She didn’t know whether to laugh or… laugh. “Are you saying you want to be one of the Scoobies?”
“Uh, no,” Spike said, horrified. “Look, Dawn sent me back here to do a job and that’s not bloody well going to happen if you lot insist on treating me like a pariah.”
She needs you, he’d told her. Twenty-one years in the future there’s going to be some serious mojo going down and she needs her blood kin to draw power from to stop it. That’s you, honey. But you died in her world when she was six, fighting the First Evil. Girl thinks I can prevent that, so here I am.
Buffy screwed up her nose. “Huh? Man-eating fish?”
“What? Oh. Pariah, not piranha.” He rolled his eyes and she shoved his arm.
“I know that, knucklehead. It was a joke.” She sighed. “What exactly-”
A fledgling rudely interrupted them then, rising from her grave five lots over. This one was quick, up and out of the ground before they could reach her, ready to meet Buffy with a hard kick to the knee. Spike dove in as Buffy went down and they struggled for a moment until Spike got the vamp in a choke hold. Buffy was reaching for her stake when the vamp somehow managed to work her way loose and sink her fangs into Spike’s arm, right over the fresh pink scar that ringed his forearm. He yelled and pushed her off, right into Buffy’s fist. With the vamp off-balance, Buffy swept her legs out from under her and sent her crashing to the grass. Stake already in hand, she bent and dusted her quickly.
“Nice right hook,” Spike said after a moment, shaking out his arm.
“Thanks.” Buffy straightened up, brushing vampire dust from her hands as she caught her breath. There was a click and a flame appeared, illuminating the sharp planes of Spike’s face eerily as he hunched to light a cigarette. She watched the shadows as they moved across his hollow cheeks, under his brow. For a moment it made him look more unearthly than when he wore his vamp face. She said, “Giles thinks you’re keeping secrets.”
“Course he does,” Spike said, blowing out a stream of white smoke with his words, lit up bright in the moonlight. “Question is, what do you think?”
She started walking again, and again Spike followed. This too was familiar; everything except resisting his company. Weird how one moment of reflection could turn something irksome into something… almost pleasant. It was a warm summer night, the air hot and close and smelling of freshly turned soil. Stringy clouds scudded across the starry sky, blurring the waning moon. She felt calm after the staking, at peace with the night.
“What do I think?” she repeated. She glanced over her shoulder and caught his eyes, glinting in the gloom. “I think we’ve all got secrets.”
Spike chuckled, a dark rumble that seemed to vibrate in her bones. He too had settled after the kill. “That so? Love to hear some of yours some time, Slayer.” He took another long drag on his cigarette. “As it happens, there is something I’m not telling you. You know, in the spirit of friendship and trust and all that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“No, don’t think so.”
“Spike. If you want in-”
“Only because you really won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
He huffed, flicking away the cigarette and shoving his hands into his pockets.
“Slayer - Buffy - just let this one lie, okay? Please? I don’t ask you for much-”
“No, you usually just steal it.”
“All right, got me there, but I’m serious about this. Just let me keep this one thing to myself, just for now.”
Buffy stopped and looked at him hard. He gazed back steadily. Nobody could do earnest like Spike, and wasn’t that just one big pile of hilarity on the part of the universe. “Is it important? Could anyone get hurt by me not knowing?”
He looked down, dark eyelashes on white skin. “No, it’s personal.”
Buffy chewed her lip, watching him squirm under her scrutiny for a moment before making up her mind. “Okay then.”
“Okay?” He looked up.
“Yeah.”
He grinned, surprised and natural, and it struck Buffy like a hammer in the gut how attractive he could be sometimes. Like wow.
Jerk.
“Thanks, pet.”
She tried to look stern. “Just don’t make me regret it. And if you’re serious about this being useful thing, Scooby meeting tomorrow in the Magic Box. We’re going to start looking for info on the First.”
*
They started patrolling together after that, never an arrangement, exactly, and not every night, but at some point near the beginning of her graveyard sweep Spike would usually appear out of the shadows and come join her. They had always fought well together, when they weren’t actually fighting each other, but Buffy had never really appreciated how much more efficient her regular slaying routine could be with a competent ally at her back. Kind of like when Riley still had his super powers, but without all the commando speak and unintelligible hand signals.
It was sorta fun, and how weird was that, having fun with Spike? But more importantly, it meant getting home earlier. More time with Dawnie before her own bedtime was never of the bad, breathing in her daughter’s powdery, dead-weight warmth when she slept, singing and talking and bouncing her when she was awake. She was just learning to smile - proper happy smiles, not just gas - and each new curve of her rosebud mouth was like a chocolate fondue in Buffy’s heart, all melty and rich with warmth.
And on the nights he patrolled with her, Spike would follow her home and loiter in the nursery doorway for a minute or two like some black-clad sentinel. He never tried to pick Dawn up again, but Buffy couldn’t help but notice the look on his face as he watched them. Hungry. Just not in the way Giles had said.
*
Sometimes they talked - about fighting styles or the latest in the First research, or sometimes just stupid stuff like that blooming onion thing at the Bronze that Spike loved so much. Sometimes they were quiet. A lot of the time they argued. One time Buffy punched him in the nose for old time’s sake.
“Well you were wrong and it was annoying,” she hissed at him as they stumbled in through the back door, Spike still clutching his nose and swearing under his breath.
“I was not and you damn well know it,” he growled back. “I’m telling you, Slayer, that was a Grarnok demon.”
“Urgh!” She had to resist the urge to stamp her foot as Spike slammed through the freezer looking for ice. “I swear to god, you must want to be staked.”
“No,” he said, glowering at her as he wrapped a handful of ice cubes in a cloth and pressed it to his nose, making a big show of it. “It’s just that you’re wrong and we both know it, and if I meet a dusty end all because you can’t admit - ow! Did you just kick me? What am I, a punching bag?”
She had. In the shin. “Watcha gonna do about it?” she singsonged. “Glare me to death?”
“The moment I get this chip out-”
“Ooh, scary. Do I look scared? Maybe I look about as scared as that Tarshal demon. You know, before I twisted its head off.”
Spike opened his mouth, seemed to realize something, and closed it again. Buffy was just about to work up to a good round of victory mockage when she realized his sheepish expression was directed over her shoulder. Oh, crap.
“Mom.”
Joyce stood in the doorway in her fluffy blue robe looking frazzled, Dawn squirming in her arms. “Have fun tonight, sweetheart?”
Oh god, it was the tone. The mom tone. The tone that said, I know you’re an adult and far too old for me to chastise any longer, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to exact my vengeance at some unspecified future time with dirty dishes and/or poopy diapers.
Buffy winced. “Sorry, did we wake you? Guess we didn’t realize how loud we were being.”
Joyce smiled slightly. “Oh no, I usually get up around two in the morning. Great for the beauty regime, I hear. Hello, Spike.”
“Uh, hi, Joyce.”
“So nice of you to drop in at the top of your voice.” She turned back to Buffy, baby held at arm’s length. “Take Dawn before this headache gets any worse and I throttle the pair of you,” she said with a gentle, wry menace that was uniquely Mom. “I’m going back to bed.”
As soon as she was out of sight, Buffy slapped his arm, “That was your fault.”
“Was not,” he whispered, but she saw the way he was watching the stairs in trepidation and smirked to herself. If only she’d realized, she’d have deployed her mom against Spike more often back in his evil days.
“Come on,” she said, leading him out onto the back porch. “How’s your nose?”
“Probably not broken, no thanks to you.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at his whining as they sat down on the porch steps, the three of them. She hadn’t exactly hit him hard. Still, she was in mommy mode now, set a good example and all that. She couldn’t quite bring herself to apologize, but… “You want to hold Dawn for a bit?”
She might’ve been too late to deploy her mom, but she wasn’t above using her daughter. Really, he was too easy.
*
College started back, the nights got longer, Dawn started teething and suddenly there was less time for everything. Sometimes it was so late by the time she managed to get out on patrol that Spike was already waiting for her out on the steps of the back porch, smoking quietly.
“You just gonna sit there?” she asked him one night, harassed beyond measure by the pile of laundry that refused to fold itself and the grumpy child who wouldn’t let Buffy put her down. Anya and Xander were supposed to be coming over to babysit while her mom was out of town, but something wedding-related had slowed them up and, as always, she’d run out of hands. “Moms should be octopuses,” she said to the ceiling. “Octopi?”
“Octopodes,” Spike said, propping himself against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s Greek, Slayer. And I’m not folding your dainties if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh like you wouldn’t love to get your grubby paws all over her underwear,” Xander’s voice called out from the foyer, the jingle of keys and the smell of pizza wafting in with him.
“Fine,” Buffy said, ignoring Xander’s late but very welcome entrance and shoving the screaming baby at Spike instead.
He gave her a look she found hard to decipher, but instead of refusing as she half expected, he unfolded his arms and hoisted Dawn up to his shoulder, jouncing her diaper-clad bottom on his forearm. Buffy got a good twenty seconds of grim satisfaction at his fate before, blissfully, the crying subsided into uncertain hiccoughs.
“Miracle on Revello Drive,” she said, reaching for the laundry pile, and wondered for a crazy moment if Spike could be convinced to get a cell phone. Vampire dial-a-nanny. The thought made her choke on a laugh.
“What?” Spike asked, defenses set on max, and she realized he’d been humming, stopped now to scowl at the perceived slight. She was saved from deciding how best to rile him up by Xander coming into the kitchen and doing it for her.
“Now that is a sight I never thought I’d see,” he said, stopping in his tracks to stare at Spike. “Vampire and child. Not exactly a da Vinci.”
“Spike! You’re a natural!” Anya said brightly, coming up behind Xander. “I wonder why. I thought I wanted babies until I met this one. She always cries whenever I try to pick her up and it hurts my ears. I think she can sense the whole ex-demon thing.”
“Yep, totally not the holding her upside down thing,” Xander said wryly.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Xander. She’s far too young to hold a grudge.”
“Give it time,” Buffy said, letting it come out dry as parchment in the way that always made Anya grin nervously.
“Oh I absolutely know which is the right way up now, no need to worry. Head at the top, feet at the bottom, just like a real person.”
“She is a real person.” They all turned to stare at Spike. He’d practically growled the words, and was glowering coldly at Anya in a way that was actually kind of scary. “Doesn’t matter how she was made, she’s real. Won’t have anyone say otherwise.”
“Hey, she was just joking,” Xander said, all traces of amusement suddenly gone.
“Don’t care,” Spike said, getting that mulish look only Xander seemed apt to provoke, and Buffy had to shake herself out of the strange heat that had crashed over her like a wave from watching the dangerous predator guarding her child.
“Cool it, both of you, before she gets going again.”
But incredibly, Dawn had plummeted into sleep, face mashed into the crook of Spike’s bloodless neck.
*
“Dusk falls and he appears.”
“Say the word, pet, and I’ll go back to my crypt, hunker down with some nice fresh blood and watch the X-Files marathon on Fox.”
But they both knew what a lie that was; Spike was already reaching for Dawn, plucking her out of her highchair and throwing her up over his head to make her laugh.
“Careful, she’s just eaten,” Willow said from her spot washing dishes at the sink. Personally Buffy thought it would be pretty damn funny if Spike got baby puke in his day-glo hair, but sadly it was not to be.
“Got some news for you, Slayer,” he said, settling Dawn comfortably at his hip while he dug in his jacket pocket with his free hand. “Know a guy who knows about a book, might have something useful in it about the First. Got the title here somewhere, thought it might be worth checking out before we try and get it off him.” Nodding, Buffy watched Dawn twist her sweet little hand in his black t-shirt. Nearly six months old and she was getting so big.
“Tara, Willow, have either of you heard of this?” she asked vaguely, still transfixed by her daughter. It struck her like that sometimes, how quickly time was passing, how fast her girl was growing and how badly she wanted to savor every moment. Spike had said she’d be dead in five and a half years’ time if they couldn’t figure this thing out, and it was longer than she’d once thought she’d ever get, but god, it wasn’t enough time.
She should’ve been more careful what she wished for - if nothing else, Anya had taught them all that - because two days later her morning classes seemed to double-time it, literally, while her afternoon was spent in an endless loop of trying to get Dawn to eat her fruit mush without causing apocalyptic damage to Buffy’s new blouse, her pants, her hair, or the kitchen tiling. She thought she was going crazy until her mom came home from work and somehow broke the cycle.
“Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all that were, like, three enormous demons that attacked me in broad daylight. In front of Professor Lillian! Like I don’t have enough to deal with,” she told Spike that night on patrol, just starting to hit her stride when a black van caught her eye. A very familiar black van.
Looking back, it seemed like things happened very quickly then, and hadn’t that been the theme of the day? A red, bat-winged demon had barred their way as they approached the van. They’d attacked, it had run, they chased, it turned into a human. Another normal day at the office. Only it turned into a human just as Spike was hitting it.
Spike hit the human, and it didn’t hurt him.
Spike’s chip didn’t fire.
Spike’s chip didn’t fire because it didn’t work anymore.
“Oh my god.”
Buffy was rooted to the spot as the boy stumbled away, the van completely forgotten.
“You-!”
Spike’s eyes were wide and blue and seemed to fill the world.
“Buffy, just hold on a-”
“No! You - you knew. Didn’t you? I trusted you and-” She couldn’t breathe. “This is what you were hiding? That thing you didn’t want to tell me? And I trusted you. Ugh, how could I have been so-”
“What? No, Buffy, just wait a second, that isn’t-”
She held up a hand, unable to even look at him. “I should stake you right now,” she said, trying to be furious but just feeling cold.
The silence stretched between them like a tightrope. She could hear him breathing.
“Are you going to?”
His voice was so quiet, pained, and damn him for looking at her like that.
“Get out of my sight,” she whispered, “before I change my mind.”
For a moment, she didn’t think he’d go. When he did, she was hard pressed to say whether she felt better or worse.
Buffy walked home on leaden feet. And in the east, the sky was beginning to lighten.
Chapter Index | Next
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~6,200 this chapter (~14,300 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to Angearia's Fin Amour)
Notes: Many thanks to Yavannie82, Angearia and Bewildered for beta work <3
5
Dusk and Dawn
The sun was setting as Buffy walked home from the Magic Box, a thin scattering of clouds catching the pinkish orange of the last rays of light. For a moment she was caught in the memory of sand, cast in the same colors, the bittersweet morning of her daughter’s birth. More sweet than bitter, she had to admit, but still… there was sadness there, and she took a moment to feel it as her feet carried her home. She was doing that more and more since Dawn had come along, just feeling. Like some kind of long ago luxury, recently rediscovered.
It had been a long day, with summer classes and a Scooby meeting at the shop, and she was eager to get home and hold her baby. Besides, she was due a celebration. The last of the Knights of Byzantium had finally left the area, repelled by Willow’s confusion spell, and that meant Dawn’s safety had just increased by the amount of ten. Or something. She was a lot safer, was the point. There would be no more attacks on the house, no more agonizing over what to do with human enemies. Buffy might even take the night off from patrolling, spend it eating ice cream in front of the TV with her mom and daughter. That would be pretty near heaven in Buffy Summers Land right about now.
But walking up Revello Drive, the house just coming into sight, her hyperfocus on her destination brought with it the creeping sense that something wasn’t quite right. It was a breezy night, leaves rustling in trees. Mrs. Davis’s dog barked as she passed, but the street was otherwise quiet. And yet, her stomach clenched uneasily. Pace quickening as she craned to see the house better, it still took her a moment to work out what was bothering her.
Behind closed shades, the light was on in the nursery, and a silhouette passed across the window.
No. No no no no no no no.
Buffy ran, reaching for the short-sword she’d taken to keeping in her backpack along with her stakes and college books. The knights were supposed to be gone, damn it - Willow had done a locator spell this evening and zip, nada, no more medieval costume brigade. It could just be her mom of course, but she almost always left it dark in there once she’d put Dawnie down, and besides, something was telling her otherwise. Something she had long ago learned to listen to.
As she shouldered her way through the front door and barreled up the stairs, that something coalesced into the warning prickle across her skin that meant vampire! Crap, not the knights at all. I’ll kill you. If you touch her I’ll kill you. Screw it, I’ll kill you anyway. And then I’ll kill whoever let you in my house.
Slamming the nursery door open she yanked the vampire away from the crib and tossed him one-handed into the wall. He snarled, bouncing to his feet, and Buffy raised her sword and saw red.
Then… black?
The blade came to a screeching halt half an inch from the vampire’s neck. Shocked blue eyes stared back at her. Eyes she hadn’t thought she’d ever see again.
“Spike?”
“Hello, cutie.”
She lost her voice for a moment, breathing hard. Dawn had woken with the disturbance, and was starting to fuss. How could… it wasn’t possible.
“What-? How-? What?”
“Buffy?” her mom called, coming up the stairs after her. “What on earth is going on up there?”
Her eyes flicked between the door, the whimpering baby and the vampire panting with unneeded breath. God, if he wasn’t real he was a damn good imitation.
“Buffy,” he said, with an agonized look at the crib, just as her mom ran in. Buffy lowered her sword as she turned to face her mom, bewildered and unaccountably embarrassed to be found in that position. Dawn took that moment to begin wailing in earnest, but before she could turn back to the crib to comfort her, Spike had scooped her up, holding her against one black-clad shoulder with surprising ease.
“Huh,” Buffy said dumbly, the first thing that came to mind. “You’re braver than Xander.”
Dawnie wasn’t exactly a difficult baby, but when she was newborn she’d had a strange aversion to being held by anyone who wasn’t Buffy or Joyce. Even now, at three months, it was pretty much fifty-fifty whether she’d coo or cry for the others, and mostly only Tara had the patience to deal when she was grizzly. Plus, once she really got going, that was usually the cue to hand her back to Buffy.
Spike… Spike was holding Dawn comfortably, murmuring softly against the side of her downy little head as though he soothed babies every day - uh, night - and slowly, Dawn’s cries were beginning to settle. It was kind of miraculous. In more ways than one.
“Spike!” Mom said, hand going to her heart. “What are you doing here?”
Ignoring Joyce, eyes meeting Buffy’s, Spike raised his scarred eyebrow at her. “You really surprised by that, Slayer?”
She didn’t know what to say. Surprise didn’t begin to cover it. And added to that, there was something… arresting about seeing the person she’d thought had died to save them holding her daughter in his big hands like she fit there.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Mom continued, “I’m happy to see you. But aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
Buffy tossed her hair over her shoulder, pulling herself together. “My thoughts exactly,” she said, holding her arms out for Dawn and raising her own eyebrows at Spike expectantly. “This had better be good.”
She absolutely did not linger when his skin touched hers as he passed back their precious cargo.
*
“So let me get this straight,” Buffy said three hours later. “You met my daughter, who came back in time, patched you up, and sent you back to Sunnydale. So that you could save the world.”
“About covers it, yeah.”
It was incredible, almost unbelievable, except that somehow it wasn’t. After a mystical pregnancy and facing down a god, this barely registered a three on the Richter scale of weirdness. And by now Spike was quite possibly on some kind of a roll, world saving-wise. But. Dawnie.
“She’s just a baby,” Buffy said, stroking her head. They were sitting at the kitchen island, empty cocoa mugs on the counter. Her mom had given up a few minutes earlier and gone to bed, claiming a headache at all this talk of future granddaughters, and now Buffy was nursing the baby beneath her blanket, trying not to feel self-conscious.
“That’s where the whole time-travel thing comes in, pet,” Spike said wryly. “She’s still the key.”
Buffy sighed. “I know. I just…” I just wish she didn’t have to be. But it was hard to admit it, because that meant facing the danger Dawn was in. Would continue to be in. “I never really appreciated what I put my mom through, before. With the slaying? To me it just felt like she was being unreasonable, overreacting. Now it’s Dawn, and I...”
“I know,” Spike said, and when she looked up Buffy caught his hand moving awkwardly back around his mug, as though he’d been reaching out to touch her before thinking better of it. “Thing is… thing is, she was incredible, Buffy. Smart, and beautiful, and completely fearless. Put me in my place right off the bat.” He was looking at her in that way he had - that banked flame, soft and warm - that used to unnerve her so badly. “She was a lot like you. A fighter, in her own way, but sweet too.”
“I am not-” she started, before realizing Spike was laughing at her.
“Oh you are, Slayer. Not in quite the same way, but I don’t mind.” Then, he sobered, and her throat constricted as if in premonition of what he would say. “I missed you.” He held her eyes a little too long, before blinking and looking away. “She said there was no flow of time where she took me, but it still felt… How long was I gone?”
“Thirteen weeks two days.” His head whipped up, surprise warring with pleasure as he visibly tried not to smile, and Buffy rushed to add, “It’s her age. I just… keep track… automatically.”
“Never said otherwise,” he agreed peaceably, but it was suddenly hard to meet his eyes. “Wasn’t that long for me, but it was enough.”
They talked for a long time, the mommy part of her eager to hear every last detail about the woman her baby would grow up to be, the slayer part needing to hear everything he could tell her about the future they were supposed to avert. But the sky lightening outside the window still took her by surprise.
“Dawn’s coming,” Spike said, as they both turned to contemplate the twilight. “Better be off soon. You think my crypt’s still in one piece?”
“Your TV’s gone, but the fridge is still there,” Buffy said without thinking.
“Is that so?”
“What?” she snapped, realizing her mistake. Too late. She squinted at him, daring him to make something of it.
“Easy, Slayer,” he said. “We were getting along for a while there. No call to go ruining it.”
“Oh please. We were not getting along,” she scoffed. “I was simply… interrogating you. So I can report back to Giles.”
“Lacking your usual bite there, love. Must be tired, what with the staying up all night chatting with your mortal enemy.”
“Shut up, Spike.”
“Points for effort,” he said with mock seriousness. “Get some sleep, Buffy. We can pick up this charming repartee later.”
He rose and turned to head out through the kitchen door, and maybe it was his leaving, or maybe it was his coming back, but abruptly she remembered lying incapacitated in the desert, newborn Dawn out of reach between her thighs on his leather duster. Remembered the sound of footsteps in the sand, and the irrational hope that he had somehow survived both the chip and the knights, and that he was coming back to her.
“Spike, wait,” she blurted, then hovered on the words she’d meant to say, unable to find a way to actually say them that wouldn’t strip her bare.
“Slayer?”
“Um…” She couldn’t do it. “Your, your duster. I still have it.”
He cocked his head, studying her. “Keep it for Dawn,” he said. “Girl gets born on it, I think she can lay claim.”
Buffy nodded, and looked down at the baby, because that was easier. Swiftly, he walked over and she braced herself for his touch, however it would come, but all he did was stand close and stroke Dawn’s rounded cheek with the pad of his black-polished forefinger.
Suddenly, it was easy.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Spike - thank you.”
He stared for a moment, then just nodded. “Guess the Watcher’ll be wanting to question me. I’ll stop by again tonight, shall I?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”
Then he was gone, and Buffy went to call Giles.
Afterwards, as the sun rose, she sat in her rocking chair in the nursery and waited for the baby to wake for her morning feed, trying to let herself just feel, process the gamut of emotions she’d gone through that night, or… she realized… tried not to go through. She’d just gotten good at being in touch with her own heart, and now, somehow, it wasn’t as simple as it had been last night. But she could still do this, her new habit felt too good to give up just because Spike was back from the dead.
She laughed silently. Just back from the dead. No big. Not by Sunnydale standards, anyway. Damn him.
She felt… confused. Bewildered. Shocked and delighted by what he’d said of her daughter. Worried too, for herself and for Dawnie. And… happy. Kind of pleased to see him, annoying smartass that he was. Now that he knew some part of their future he was going to be even more annoying than usual, she just knew it, but even so, she realized - she felt glad he hadn’t dusted, and that he had come back after all, even if it was three months late.
That thought took a while to digest, but by the time Dawnie was done nursing, Buffy was practically the walking comatose and couldn’t think at all anymore. She fell asleep the moment she hit the mattress, and didn’t wake until her mom brought Dawn in, fussing for her next feed.
*
“Well yes, it is quite a remarkable story,” Giles said, giving his glasses a thoughtful polish in the middle of Buffy’s living room that evening.
“Story? You don’t believe him?” Buffy asked. Spike had repeated their conversation from the night before, somewhat abbreviated but covering all the major plot points, and then she’d sent him on his way so that they could talk about him behind his back. For the first time ever, it didn’t sit well with her.
“You do?” Xander practically spluttered.
“Buffy, this is Spike we’re talking about,” Willow added. “Still part of the fangy brethren, not exactly known for their truth telling ways.”
“I don’t know,” Tara said slowly. “He’s usually pretty honest.”
“Yeah,” Buffy snorted. “Spike’d think it was way too much effort to think up something this elaborate.”
“When I was evil, I used to tell the truth all the time,” Anya said. “There’s nothing like the truth for unsettling people.”
“Well consider me unsettled, Ahn,” Xander said with a grimace, “because if little Dawnie’s gonna…” he trailed off, gesticulating helplessly at where Dawn lay on her play mat, chubby little legs pumping like she was doing the backstroke. “Deeply, deeply unsettled.”
Giles turned to her. “Buffy, what do you think?”
“Did you see the marks on his right arm?” she asked. “Spike said it was severed and then reattached, so with vampire healing… the scarring looks about right. How else could he have got that? And I know… I know he must have been pretty badly beaten up, because not one of those ren fair rejects made it past him that night, and you saw how many there were. As for the rest… He has to have gotten out of that desert somehow.” She thought of his face, his eyes, as he’d told her his tale last night. “It feels true. It feels like he’s telling the truth.”
“You trust him.” It wasn’t a question, and Buffy was relieved not to have to answer it, but later as she was getting ready to leave for patrol and Giles was making tea for he and Joyce, he brought it up again.
“Giles,” she said, “he’s not that complicated a guy. It’s pretty easy to figure out when he’s up to something and this is not that. Besides, after what he did for me and Dawn, don’t you think he’s earned it?”
“You may be right,” Giles conceded, “but Buffy, he’s still a vampire and a soulless one at that. Just be careful. I can’t shake the sense that there’s something he’s not telling us.”
Buffy frowned. “What do you mean?”
Giles wrapped the string of the teabag around his finger and bobbed it up and down in the teacup, watching it with a frown.
“You said you found him in the nursery?”
“…Yes?”
“Well don’t you think that’s a little strange? If he had nothing to hide, why not come in the front door? For some reason I have yet to fathom, your mother has always harbored a soft spot for him that seems, even more incredibly, to be reciprocated. Why not greet her properly and save everyone the shock of finding him where you did?”
“I never said he didn’t have impulse control issues,” Buffy said, shrugging. “I think he just wanted to see Dawn. Kinda makes sense, having spent so much time with future-her. And he’s really good with her, you know. Calmed her down from a crying fit and everything.”
Giles glanced up sharply. “You let a vampire soothe your baby?”
“Let is a strong word.” She paused, remembering the way he’d held Dawn close. The same way Buffy held her close. Like she was treasured. Like he would shelter her. “He was really gentle with her, Giles. I think he… he cares about her. What? You have disapproval face on.”
“Buffy,” Giles said, in his Gilesy, making-it-perfectly-clear-I’m-valiantly-holding-in-a-sigh way. “Dawn is your child and it’s only natural that you expect everyone to find her as remarkable and fascinating as you do, but Spike is a vampire - a demon - you must see how odd it is that he would feel anything for her except hunger.”
“Oh, ew. Giles.”
“Well think about it, Buffy.”
Something gave way. “I have, more than you know. There were a couple of weeks after the desert when I could barely think about anything else, and you wanna know what I realized? Spike was ready to die for Dawn - he practically fried his own brains out trying to protect her - because he loved me. Because our lives were more important to him than his own. I didn’t want to admit it but in the end there’s no other explanation. So yeah, maybe he’s not telling us everything, but if you honestly think he’s any danger to Dawn now-”
Giles held up a hand and said hastily, “No, no, of course not. I just want you to be on your guard. Whatever odyssey Spike has undergone over the last three months, there’s something about it he’s keeping back, I’m almost certain of it. And I have to wonder why.”
“Fine,” Buffy said with a tight smile, reaching for the kitchen door, “I’ll ask him. Will that make you happy?”
She just caught his answer before the door closed behind her. He sounded weary. “Ecstatic.”
*
Spike was lurking behind the tree out front, of course. Of course. The stab of annoyance as she hauled him out was so familiar she felt her spirits buoyed immediately.
“Back to this already?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Slayer.”
“Right, creepo guy, sure you don’t.” How good was vampire hearing, anyway? Had he been listening in to their Spike-centric discussion ever since he’d left? He was watching her warily, tense and trying not to show it. Without his duster it was a lot easier to see the set of his shoulders, the lines of his body. “Come on, I’ve got to patrol,” she said, wanting to get away from the house for this, and started walking without waiting for his answer. After a moment she felt him fall in beside her, a shadow at her left.
They walked towards Shady Rest without talking. Sometimes being quiet with Spike was easy, but tonight his silence was putting her on edge. He had the air of a man waiting for the firing squad, and she couldn’t figure out why. It was irritating.
“What’s got you all clammed up?” she asked lightly, watching her feet on the uneven ground. “Cat got your tongue?”
Spike huffed. “Don’t mix your metaphors, Slayer,” he muttered. “Said my piece already, mic’s all yours.”
“Okay, but-”
“It’s just, before, with Glory, I was useful, right? And what happens now? Danger’s gone, let’s give old Spike the boot.”
“What are you saying?” Buffy asked, stopping so she could look at him properly. She didn’t know whether to laugh or… laugh. “Are you saying you want to be one of the Scoobies?”
“Uh, no,” Spike said, horrified. “Look, Dawn sent me back here to do a job and that’s not bloody well going to happen if you lot insist on treating me like a pariah.”
She needs you, he’d told her. Twenty-one years in the future there’s going to be some serious mojo going down and she needs her blood kin to draw power from to stop it. That’s you, honey. But you died in her world when she was six, fighting the First Evil. Girl thinks I can prevent that, so here I am.
Buffy screwed up her nose. “Huh? Man-eating fish?”
“What? Oh. Pariah, not piranha.” He rolled his eyes and she shoved his arm.
“I know that, knucklehead. It was a joke.” She sighed. “What exactly-”
A fledgling rudely interrupted them then, rising from her grave five lots over. This one was quick, up and out of the ground before they could reach her, ready to meet Buffy with a hard kick to the knee. Spike dove in as Buffy went down and they struggled for a moment until Spike got the vamp in a choke hold. Buffy was reaching for her stake when the vamp somehow managed to work her way loose and sink her fangs into Spike’s arm, right over the fresh pink scar that ringed his forearm. He yelled and pushed her off, right into Buffy’s fist. With the vamp off-balance, Buffy swept her legs out from under her and sent her crashing to the grass. Stake already in hand, she bent and dusted her quickly.
“Nice right hook,” Spike said after a moment, shaking out his arm.
“Thanks.” Buffy straightened up, brushing vampire dust from her hands as she caught her breath. There was a click and a flame appeared, illuminating the sharp planes of Spike’s face eerily as he hunched to light a cigarette. She watched the shadows as they moved across his hollow cheeks, under his brow. For a moment it made him look more unearthly than when he wore his vamp face. She said, “Giles thinks you’re keeping secrets.”
“Course he does,” Spike said, blowing out a stream of white smoke with his words, lit up bright in the moonlight. “Question is, what do you think?”
She started walking again, and again Spike followed. This too was familiar; everything except resisting his company. Weird how one moment of reflection could turn something irksome into something… almost pleasant. It was a warm summer night, the air hot and close and smelling of freshly turned soil. Stringy clouds scudded across the starry sky, blurring the waning moon. She felt calm after the staking, at peace with the night.
“What do I think?” she repeated. She glanced over her shoulder and caught his eyes, glinting in the gloom. “I think we’ve all got secrets.”
Spike chuckled, a dark rumble that seemed to vibrate in her bones. He too had settled after the kill. “That so? Love to hear some of yours some time, Slayer.” He took another long drag on his cigarette. “As it happens, there is something I’m not telling you. You know, in the spirit of friendship and trust and all that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“No, don’t think so.”
“Spike. If you want in-”
“Only because you really won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
He huffed, flicking away the cigarette and shoving his hands into his pockets.
“Slayer - Buffy - just let this one lie, okay? Please? I don’t ask you for much-”
“No, you usually just steal it.”
“All right, got me there, but I’m serious about this. Just let me keep this one thing to myself, just for now.”
Buffy stopped and looked at him hard. He gazed back steadily. Nobody could do earnest like Spike, and wasn’t that just one big pile of hilarity on the part of the universe. “Is it important? Could anyone get hurt by me not knowing?”
He looked down, dark eyelashes on white skin. “No, it’s personal.”
Buffy chewed her lip, watching him squirm under her scrutiny for a moment before making up her mind. “Okay then.”
“Okay?” He looked up.
“Yeah.”
He grinned, surprised and natural, and it struck Buffy like a hammer in the gut how attractive he could be sometimes. Like wow.
Jerk.
“Thanks, pet.”
She tried to look stern. “Just don’t make me regret it. And if you’re serious about this being useful thing, Scooby meeting tomorrow in the Magic Box. We’re going to start looking for info on the First.”
*
They started patrolling together after that, never an arrangement, exactly, and not every night, but at some point near the beginning of her graveyard sweep Spike would usually appear out of the shadows and come join her. They had always fought well together, when they weren’t actually fighting each other, but Buffy had never really appreciated how much more efficient her regular slaying routine could be with a competent ally at her back. Kind of like when Riley still had his super powers, but without all the commando speak and unintelligible hand signals.
It was sorta fun, and how weird was that, having fun with Spike? But more importantly, it meant getting home earlier. More time with Dawnie before her own bedtime was never of the bad, breathing in her daughter’s powdery, dead-weight warmth when she slept, singing and talking and bouncing her when she was awake. She was just learning to smile - proper happy smiles, not just gas - and each new curve of her rosebud mouth was like a chocolate fondue in Buffy’s heart, all melty and rich with warmth.
And on the nights he patrolled with her, Spike would follow her home and loiter in the nursery doorway for a minute or two like some black-clad sentinel. He never tried to pick Dawn up again, but Buffy couldn’t help but notice the look on his face as he watched them. Hungry. Just not in the way Giles had said.
*
Sometimes they talked - about fighting styles or the latest in the First research, or sometimes just stupid stuff like that blooming onion thing at the Bronze that Spike loved so much. Sometimes they were quiet. A lot of the time they argued. One time Buffy punched him in the nose for old time’s sake.
“Well you were wrong and it was annoying,” she hissed at him as they stumbled in through the back door, Spike still clutching his nose and swearing under his breath.
“I was not and you damn well know it,” he growled back. “I’m telling you, Slayer, that was a Grarnok demon.”
“Urgh!” She had to resist the urge to stamp her foot as Spike slammed through the freezer looking for ice. “I swear to god, you must want to be staked.”
“No,” he said, glowering at her as he wrapped a handful of ice cubes in a cloth and pressed it to his nose, making a big show of it. “It’s just that you’re wrong and we both know it, and if I meet a dusty end all because you can’t admit - ow! Did you just kick me? What am I, a punching bag?”
She had. In the shin. “Watcha gonna do about it?” she singsonged. “Glare me to death?”
“The moment I get this chip out-”
“Ooh, scary. Do I look scared? Maybe I look about as scared as that Tarshal demon. You know, before I twisted its head off.”
Spike opened his mouth, seemed to realize something, and closed it again. Buffy was just about to work up to a good round of victory mockage when she realized his sheepish expression was directed over her shoulder. Oh, crap.
“Mom.”
Joyce stood in the doorway in her fluffy blue robe looking frazzled, Dawn squirming in her arms. “Have fun tonight, sweetheart?”
Oh god, it was the tone. The mom tone. The tone that said, I know you’re an adult and far too old for me to chastise any longer, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to exact my vengeance at some unspecified future time with dirty dishes and/or poopy diapers.
Buffy winced. “Sorry, did we wake you? Guess we didn’t realize how loud we were being.”
Joyce smiled slightly. “Oh no, I usually get up around two in the morning. Great for the beauty regime, I hear. Hello, Spike.”
“Uh, hi, Joyce.”
“So nice of you to drop in at the top of your voice.” She turned back to Buffy, baby held at arm’s length. “Take Dawn before this headache gets any worse and I throttle the pair of you,” she said with a gentle, wry menace that was uniquely Mom. “I’m going back to bed.”
As soon as she was out of sight, Buffy slapped his arm, “That was your fault.”
“Was not,” he whispered, but she saw the way he was watching the stairs in trepidation and smirked to herself. If only she’d realized, she’d have deployed her mom against Spike more often back in his evil days.
“Come on,” she said, leading him out onto the back porch. “How’s your nose?”
“Probably not broken, no thanks to you.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at his whining as they sat down on the porch steps, the three of them. She hadn’t exactly hit him hard. Still, she was in mommy mode now, set a good example and all that. She couldn’t quite bring herself to apologize, but… “You want to hold Dawn for a bit?”
She might’ve been too late to deploy her mom, but she wasn’t above using her daughter. Really, he was too easy.
*
College started back, the nights got longer, Dawn started teething and suddenly there was less time for everything. Sometimes it was so late by the time she managed to get out on patrol that Spike was already waiting for her out on the steps of the back porch, smoking quietly.
“You just gonna sit there?” she asked him one night, harassed beyond measure by the pile of laundry that refused to fold itself and the grumpy child who wouldn’t let Buffy put her down. Anya and Xander were supposed to be coming over to babysit while her mom was out of town, but something wedding-related had slowed them up and, as always, she’d run out of hands. “Moms should be octopuses,” she said to the ceiling. “Octopi?”
“Octopodes,” Spike said, propping himself against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s Greek, Slayer. And I’m not folding your dainties if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh like you wouldn’t love to get your grubby paws all over her underwear,” Xander’s voice called out from the foyer, the jingle of keys and the smell of pizza wafting in with him.
“Fine,” Buffy said, ignoring Xander’s late but very welcome entrance and shoving the screaming baby at Spike instead.
He gave her a look she found hard to decipher, but instead of refusing as she half expected, he unfolded his arms and hoisted Dawn up to his shoulder, jouncing her diaper-clad bottom on his forearm. Buffy got a good twenty seconds of grim satisfaction at his fate before, blissfully, the crying subsided into uncertain hiccoughs.
“Miracle on Revello Drive,” she said, reaching for the laundry pile, and wondered for a crazy moment if Spike could be convinced to get a cell phone. Vampire dial-a-nanny. The thought made her choke on a laugh.
“What?” Spike asked, defenses set on max, and she realized he’d been humming, stopped now to scowl at the perceived slight. She was saved from deciding how best to rile him up by Xander coming into the kitchen and doing it for her.
“Now that is a sight I never thought I’d see,” he said, stopping in his tracks to stare at Spike. “Vampire and child. Not exactly a da Vinci.”
“Spike! You’re a natural!” Anya said brightly, coming up behind Xander. “I wonder why. I thought I wanted babies until I met this one. She always cries whenever I try to pick her up and it hurts my ears. I think she can sense the whole ex-demon thing.”
“Yep, totally not the holding her upside down thing,” Xander said wryly.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Xander. She’s far too young to hold a grudge.”
“Give it time,” Buffy said, letting it come out dry as parchment in the way that always made Anya grin nervously.
“Oh I absolutely know which is the right way up now, no need to worry. Head at the top, feet at the bottom, just like a real person.”
“She is a real person.” They all turned to stare at Spike. He’d practically growled the words, and was glowering coldly at Anya in a way that was actually kind of scary. “Doesn’t matter how she was made, she’s real. Won’t have anyone say otherwise.”
“Hey, she was just joking,” Xander said, all traces of amusement suddenly gone.
“Don’t care,” Spike said, getting that mulish look only Xander seemed apt to provoke, and Buffy had to shake herself out of the strange heat that had crashed over her like a wave from watching the dangerous predator guarding her child.
“Cool it, both of you, before she gets going again.”
But incredibly, Dawn had plummeted into sleep, face mashed into the crook of Spike’s bloodless neck.
*
“Dusk falls and he appears.”
“Say the word, pet, and I’ll go back to my crypt, hunker down with some nice fresh blood and watch the X-Files marathon on Fox.”
But they both knew what a lie that was; Spike was already reaching for Dawn, plucking her out of her highchair and throwing her up over his head to make her laugh.
“Careful, she’s just eaten,” Willow said from her spot washing dishes at the sink. Personally Buffy thought it would be pretty damn funny if Spike got baby puke in his day-glo hair, but sadly it was not to be.
“Got some news for you, Slayer,” he said, settling Dawn comfortably at his hip while he dug in his jacket pocket with his free hand. “Know a guy who knows about a book, might have something useful in it about the First. Got the title here somewhere, thought it might be worth checking out before we try and get it off him.” Nodding, Buffy watched Dawn twist her sweet little hand in his black t-shirt. Nearly six months old and she was getting so big.
“Tara, Willow, have either of you heard of this?” she asked vaguely, still transfixed by her daughter. It struck her like that sometimes, how quickly time was passing, how fast her girl was growing and how badly she wanted to savor every moment. Spike had said she’d be dead in five and a half years’ time if they couldn’t figure this thing out, and it was longer than she’d once thought she’d ever get, but god, it wasn’t enough time.
She should’ve been more careful what she wished for - if nothing else, Anya had taught them all that - because two days later her morning classes seemed to double-time it, literally, while her afternoon was spent in an endless loop of trying to get Dawn to eat her fruit mush without causing apocalyptic damage to Buffy’s new blouse, her pants, her hair, or the kitchen tiling. She thought she was going crazy until her mom came home from work and somehow broke the cycle.
“Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all that were, like, three enormous demons that attacked me in broad daylight. In front of Professor Lillian! Like I don’t have enough to deal with,” she told Spike that night on patrol, just starting to hit her stride when a black van caught her eye. A very familiar black van.
Looking back, it seemed like things happened very quickly then, and hadn’t that been the theme of the day? A red, bat-winged demon had barred their way as they approached the van. They’d attacked, it had run, they chased, it turned into a human. Another normal day at the office. Only it turned into a human just as Spike was hitting it.
Spike hit the human, and it didn’t hurt him.
Spike’s chip didn’t fire.
Spike’s chip didn’t fire because it didn’t work anymore.
“Oh my god.”
Buffy was rooted to the spot as the boy stumbled away, the van completely forgotten.
“You-!”
Spike’s eyes were wide and blue and seemed to fill the world.
“Buffy, just hold on a-”
“No! You - you knew. Didn’t you? I trusted you and-” She couldn’t breathe. “This is what you were hiding? That thing you didn’t want to tell me? And I trusted you. Ugh, how could I have been so-”
“What? No, Buffy, just wait a second, that isn’t-”
She held up a hand, unable to even look at him. “I should stake you right now,” she said, trying to be furious but just feeling cold.
The silence stretched between them like a tightrope. She could hear him breathing.
“Are you going to?”
His voice was so quiet, pained, and damn him for looking at her like that.
“Get out of my sight,” she whispered, “before I change my mind.”
For a moment, she didn’t think he’d go. When he did, she was hard pressed to say whether she felt better or worse.
Buffy walked home on leaden feet. And in the east, the sky was beginning to lighten.
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