The Slayer and Her Vampire by Megan

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Chapters 16-20

Chapter 16

It wasn’t grief that made Buffy avoid eye contact with Willow the next morning. It was the big grin the redhead had aimed at the two blonde’s entangled on the couch when they woke and Buffy realised Spike was still buried deep and wet inside her. The sensation of him swelling up and she stretching accommodatingly around him was enough to make the humiliation kick in tenfold, knowing that there was no way she could gracefully let him slide out and she could stand as if nothing happened and go take a morning shower. Wash away the ravages of make-up sex after Spike’s blunder about her mother.

Willow had persistently sat staring, that grin never faltering as Buffy felt several moans cut off in her throat before they could be released. Spike slept on, but apparently consciousness wasn’t a requirement when a dick needed seeing to and Buffy was stuck impaled on him while he gently thrust himself to another orgasm. And Buffy buried her head in his chest and tried her best to ignore Willow’s mounting hysterical giggles.

“Oh God,” she muttered into his tee and wondered how the hell she was going to fix this. How was she going to get Spike awake and decently tucked in before Xander worked out what was going on?

The dilemma was solved when Giles let out an ear-splitting shriek and came half tumbling down the stairs. “I thought you Americans were too civilised for vermin?”

Xander jumped to his feet, stumbling as he struggled to wake, his manly heroics ready to be displayed. “Where is the dastardly pest, G-man?”

Giles pointed toward his room at the top of the stairs, spluttering his outrage. “It’s a bloody mouse, of all things horrid.” He shuddered, then jumped a foot in the air as Willow shrieked, and turned just in time to see the creature run down the stairs and do a terrified, galloping circuit around the living room.

The distraction was enough, Buffy now standing awkwardly and Spike rubbing his abused ears with his jeans pulled up and properly zippered. Buffy’s face, however, went an extreme shade of red as she felt two times worth of goo slowly slide down her inner thigh. With a pretend squeal of fear, she dove for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and vowing to not return until the mouse was caught. And then they heard the bathroom pipes groan and shudder and knew that Buffy was waking happily with the aid of soothing hot water. Willow eyed Spike suspiciously, only realising this was the first time they’d been left alone in a room with a fully operational master vampire when he sneered and cupped his now flaccid appendage.

“See something you like, Pet?” he smirked as Willow eeped and ran as far from him as she could go, which wasn’t as far as she might have liked with her flannel pj’s altering the number of places she could respectably visit.

Forty minutes later, the pandemonium was at an end. Stomachs had been filled courtesy of a butcher and baker drop, and the research had begun. It continued in that fashion—for once in blessed silence due to the gravity of their subject and the uncertainty of how Buffy would take a jovial approach—until belly’s began a rumbling order for lunch.

Instead of announcing a break like any normal head researcher would, Giles slammed his book closed in irritation and jumped to his feet. "Blast it! How bloody hard can it be to ensoul a vampire?"

The Scoobies stared at him, bleak and sad at the lack of the progress with dealing with their problem, until Spike laughed and broke the spell.

“Oh, not bleeding hard at all. That’s why there was only one, you git!”

“Your sarcasm is duly noted,” Giles informed dryly, feeling a little the fool that he’d left himself open to such a comment from a—possibly former—evil vampire. “As much as it is unnecessary,” he felt churlish enough to add.

Spike snorted and then stomped his way to the bathroom, not even looking over his shoulder at the gaping onlookers as he broke the lock and let himself into a room bursting with very embarrassed slayer.

Xander stared after him with obvious envy. “There are moments when you’ve got to love vampire abilities. Pity the blood diet doesn’t quite mix with Twinkies. I so couldn’t get into that even for wet, naked Buffy.” The wistful expression dived headlong into embarrassment as Willow choked in shock and Giles pinned him with a disgusted look.

The awkwardness was solved by a frantic swan dive into the books, each of them trying their best to ignore the noises that every so often bounced down the hall from the bathroom.

Buffy’s cheeks were slightly tinged pink when she at last reappeared in the living room, squeaky clean and hair damp from a second impromptu shower. “How goes the research?” she ventured, her voice weak of emotion as she flopped down in the armchair and deftly avoided inquiring eyes.

Giles quickly looked at his crack research team and sighed. He did his best to ignore the strutting demon that slunk up to Buffy and perched easily on the arm of the sofa, her hand dropping to massage his thigh.

“There’s no luck, I’m afraid. It perhaps would have been useful to know the name of the clan that originally cursed him, but as it is, there is no mention at all of any gypsy clan even having this fascinating ability.” Giles paused, contemplating what kind of weapon such a thing could be. His eyes suddenly bulged and his gaze rested on the only other vampire he’d been forced into contact with; new options of security started to flow like seductive whispers along thought synapses and only after the damage was done did he notice the pressure of his teeth in the plastic coated temple of his reading glasses.

Spike bounced to his feet, feeling very defensive at that look that made the Watcher’s eyes shine with planning and corruption.

“You can go wash your mind out with soap, Rupert. There is no way you’re shoving a soul in me. I’m not going to hurt any of you. Wouldn’t want to, anyway. Been right decent to me, an’ all. Wouldn’t be right.” He hoped it was enough. It was true, but Spike could still understand why Buffy’s mates might not be willing to trust him. A week ago he’d still hated them all—would gladly have sucked them dry even if it meant facing the fury of his ponce of a grandsire. “Look, whether you believe me or not, m’loyalties have switched sides. Buffy helped me where my own sire couldn’t be bothered. I’ll admit pig’s blood isn’t much a step up from dog, but beggars are grateful for the smallest of things. And the Slayer isn’t small.” He aimed a sultry leer at Buffy and felt gratified at her mixed look of lust and reproach.

“Let’s just concentrate on souling up the one vamp.” Buffy paused uncertainly, sadness evident no matter how much she tried to repress. “And Mom. I don’t know if I could handle more than one broody ex-Big Bad. Let’s leave Spike just how he is for the moment and work out how to save my mom and the world.”

Giles flushed before lowering his eyes. “Indeed.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He just appeared, like a bruise with no clue to its origin. Right in the middle of Giles’s apartment, complete with quirky accent and totally ratty out-of-date hat. He grinned expectantly while the crowd around him stared stunned at the mystical intrusion.

“Evenin’ all.”

Nobody uttered a word in response, confused eyes tracing a repetitive trail from the still closed door to where the little man with the atrocious dress sense stood in the middle of them—Spike standing, Giles at his table surrounded by his beloved mystery solving books, and Willow and Buffy snickering on the couch at the final one of their group: Xander. His silent Giles impersonation came to an abrupt and guilty stop now that there were more witnesses.

“Er, if you don’t mind my asking,” said Giles as he stood from the table, glasses dangling from tired fingers, “where exactly did you come from?”

The intruder pointed seemingly to the heavens, tapped his nose and winked like he was hiding a big secret. Two quick beats and they learned secrets and this guy just weren’t on the same wavelength. “Nah, just playing with you. The Power’s sent me. Seems you’ve been allowed a hint or two with your little problem because the rate you lot are going, Angelus would manage to take over the world and you guys would still be left scratching your heads.”

“And yet, that so doesn’t answer the question. And who the hell are you?” Buffy had fluidly found her feet, standing in preparation of defending her friends if this weirdo got even a little bit more cryptic with the explanation.

“Whoa! Stand down, Slayer. Name’s Whistler. I’m here to point you guys in the right direction. Not my fault you all need to be guided toward the obvious. Still, Angel was supposed to be your guide though this Chosen gig—and look how that turned out. Really not what the big guys upstairs planned.” He stood in front of them expectantly and he grinned as Buffy met the challenge.

“You can really stop with the loving the sound of your own voice any minute now and tell us what the hell you’re talking about. What is so obvious that we’ve missed it?” Her arms crossed, Buffy Summers stared down this unknown quantity and felt fire whip through her veins at the presumption that Angel was any kind of guide.

“You don’t need to bury your heads in the books. You would have found exactly the one that could tell you about the curse if you’d not gone into hiding. Called into work recently, Watcher?” He raised an eyebrow as he looked to the elder, more responsible and supposedly switched on member of the troupe. “Anyone at the school that might have missed your absence? Or anyone you wish would notice you not being around?”

Giles whipped his glasses off again and tried hard to push down the blush that would betray him to a bunch of opportunistic children. “P-perhaps. What of it?”

“Well, there’s your answer. Jenny Calendar has been trying to translate the original soul curse since The Gelled One went and lost it. Now, she’s just about got it cracked, and turning the Slayer’s mother gave her enough time while the evil duo were otherwise occupied. But now Spike here’s mad ex has worked it out. Your teacher is the answer, but she’s on borrowed time.” A sudden grin split his face and he tipped his hat in farewell. “Good luck to you.” As unexplained as his original appearance was, the disappearance was just as confounding.

The clock on Giles’ wall ticked ominously the hour and as one, Giles and Buffy looked out the window at the rapidly darkening sky.

“Bloody hell,” Giles blustered. “The little prat could have told us where she is.”

Spike stood, his face thoughtful. “What’s she like? How’s she likely to do the research?”

“Oh oh,” Willow shouted frantically, her voice too high and excited as she alerted them all to her increasing fear. “She’d be doing it on the school’s computer. She does all her research there.”

“Oh come on. She’s researching how to put the trap back on Angelus. She can’t possibly be stupid enough to stay at the school once it’s getting dark,” Spike scoffed. Even the annoying whelp couldn’t be that daft.

The human contingent exchanged worried glances, the vampire now restrained in Buffy’s basement uppermost on their minds. Without consultation, without confirmation, they all ran to the door and bolted to Giles’s car. It was soon obvious that not all of them would fit—particularly if they had to bring back a foolish, risk-taking teacher and her work.

“Willow, Xander, you stay here at Giles’s. We’ll bring back Miss Calendar.” Steely determination gleamed brightly in Buffy’s eyes and they nodded and stepped back, retreading their path back to the apartment and locking themselves behind the closed door.

Buffy, Giles and Spike piled into the car and it was soon apparent that frustration was going to make things ugly.

“Take your bloody foot off the brake, pops. You want to save this bint or not?”

Buffy and Spike were flung back as the misleading chunk of metal picked it up a notch and clunked as it sped around the town. Streetlights were flickering to life as the little car blurred down streets and finally screeched to a stop outside the school. The two superheros practically flew into the school to do the rescuing while Giles fought to keep himself behind the wheel. He could understand the need to have a quick getaway, and to have his eye open for vampiric threats in the vicinity, but everything inside him screamed at his need to go to the woman he’d been neglecting for no good reason the past few days.

He could feel the anticipation on the night as it squeezed all rational thought from his mind. Just as he was about to damn them all with his idiotic need to be in it to his neck, Buffy ran like lightening back to the car, dragging a terrified and tear-stained Jenny along beside her. Spike kept up with what looked like a computer tower under his arm, his black coat flapping wildly behind him.

They hit the car and slid inside hardly without stopping, bunched up grunts of pain groaned around desperate calls to get the car moving. The blurred form of Angelus fast approaching brought focus back to his mind and Giles slammed his foot on the accelerator, nearly peeing himself as the car fishtailed before straightening and rocking out of the street like a bullet. A hard bump hit the back and he grinned in unrestrained glee as he felt the great thumping pillock slide off and hit the asphalt hard. He wanted to shout insults out the window, but the frightening swerve of his car even as he started winding down the window put paid to that idea and Giles just concentrated on pointing his car toward safety.

Childish retribution could wait.

Chapter 17

They spent an inordinate amount of time sitting around being puzzled. While it had taken some time under the safety of Giles’ roof for the panicked hearts to resume a normal beat, there had yet to be anything as productive as explanations. Spike, having gotten used to near miss heart thumping events long ago, sat impatiently waiting for them all to get some kind of action about them.

“Not that I want to point out the urgency at all, but don’t you lot think you should at least talk to the chit and find out what all the potential grizzly death was about?” Spike suffered the Watcher’s glare good-naturedly and flung a casual arm across Buffy’s shoulders.

“Would it kill you to not be so embarrassingly blunt on occasion?” Giles narrowed his eyes, knowing that he wasn’t going to win any argument with a conscienceless vampire and wondered, not for the first time, what on earth Buffy saw in him.

“Already dead,” Spike taunted, then looked immediately chastened as Buffy’s elbow made crunching contact with his ribs. “But I’ll try and tone down the seductive need to make fun of you lot.” A pause. “For Buffy.”

The Slayer hit him with a watery, but grateful smile and Spike felt himself melt into vampire goo.

“Right,” Giles stuttered, feeling completely wrong-footed now that his enormous potential for putting Spike in his place was all but promised at an end. He was almost saddened, and then the next instant buoyed up again with the knowledge that someone with so much automatic snark could unlikely just turn it off like tap water. With the essentials now seemingly sorted, Giles caught sight of the newcomer to their group and blushed under her dark-eyed stare. Quite inconveniently his brain chose then to catch up with his adrenaline and the significance of what was happening finally sorted itself from the blind panic to make sure Jenny made it away from Angelus safely.

“Forgive me if I’m being rather forward, Jenny, but what pray tell were you doing in the school so late at night?” Giles felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as the dots began to connect and the teacher’s face flushed.

She looked cornered, scared almost, but then took a deep fortifying breath and revealed her secrets.

“I’ve been working on translating the soul curse so that I might be able to return it to Angel.” She looked nervously between each of those she already knew and then stopped on Spike, her eyes widening in wonder as he grinned encouragingly at her. A vampire in their midst—and one absent a soul. She had a long history of knowing exactly how rare it was for Angel to have one. Well, not so much rare as unique and yet here sat a vampire who had been almost central in helping her escape Angelus’s attack with her life and limb very much intact. And not once had he tried to snack on her. “Do I know you?” she finally directed at a thoroughly amused Spike and he tilted his head to the side to better study her.

“Nope,” he answered, though with a glint of recognition in his eye. “But I suspect your ancestors would have.”

Understanding came over Jenny and her body posture went rigid in the chair. “You’re William the Bloody? And you’re sitting here next to the Slayer? Oh God, what’s going on?” Jenny didn’t bother to hide her agitation, her gaze flickering back and forth between them uneasily, wondering if they’d been vamped in the two days they’d been missing.

“The one and only,” Spike answered, interested in the way her heart rate went through the roof. It was somewhat gratifying to find new people he could scare without even trying. Have them sitting in a wet patch derived from his name only.

“The situation with Spike is rather…unusual,” Giles conceded as he cut in. There was a tickle of urgency he was unable to ignore—and not so much for finding out about the progress of the translation. He felt betrayed, wondering what the link here was that he should have known about. Apparently it would be the first time something went on within the Council’s sphere of far reaching vision and they’d failed to make the obvious leap and put him in the know. Unless they’d intentionally kept Ms. Calendar’s involvement in this side of the business close to the chest.

“How is it that you not only have an interest in Angelus’s curse, but also possess the knowledge and means to decipher it?” He couldn’t hold back the glare, challenging himself to rein in the full extent of his frustration and anger as he waited for the final shoe to drop. There was no denying that Jenny had been somewhat involved since Angel had changed to his more evil side, but to what extent, they’d had no idea. No possible chance of knowing that she could be so embroiled in the situation as to come across a solution so potent.

“I was sent here,” she admitted slowly, “to keep track of Angelus, and to make sure he didn’t stop feeling the effects of the misery he enforced on my people.”

Shock settled on the group and Willow and Xander aimed identical expressions of uncertain concern to Buffy as she jumped from the sofa and glared at her teacher.

“You knew he could lose his soul and what? Sat back and waited for the entertainment?” Buffy was a picture of repressed rage wrapped convincingly in hurt and she was so caught up in it she didn’t even notice Spike’s eyes as they narrowed angrily.

“Of course not. But I was bound by my people to keep my mission a secret. It was not allowed for Angel to find out who I was—what I meant to him and his existence. There has been no joy in seeing what that monster did to you, Buffy. I had no way of knowing that sharing that kind of moment with you would be what would break the curse.” The teacher’s eyes were sad, the irises darker as she accepted the extent of her betrayal in keeping silent and the effect on these new people she cared about.

“Wha?” Shell-shocked Buffy stood totally still, soaking up that addition to the knowledge having. “It was me? I mean, I know it was me. But—”

“You gave him a singular moment of happiness,” the gypsy confided, despite the churning in her gut.

“Way to go, Buff. A hundred years and he gets the happy with—” Xander’s expression darkened as his mind caught up to his mouth and he realised what he was congratulating Buffy on. “Really, forget I opened my mouth. So not something to be proud of!” He turned away and slumped dejectedly back in his chair, comfy for the rest of the disturbing unfolding of the many truths.

“How could you keep such an important thing secret, Jenny? I-I thought we were…friends.” Giles implored her for answers that made sense to him and all she could offer was a wobbly smile of penance.

“Friends, Rupert? I thought we were more than that?” She was only human, and a vulnerable one emotionally at that. “If I’d betrayed my people, they would have cast me out. This is my family. What would you have had me do?”

“Warn us that a bloody homicidal maniac could well be a consequence of my Slayer’s involvement with him, for starters. And then possibly some intelligence on how to reassert the former state of affairs.” There was no forgiveness or understanding in his tone, and he felt justified with his harshness as tears began to run down Buffy’s cheeks. That he had no clue if it was in mourning that she herself had caused this current disaster, or the fact that her mother had become such a tragic casualty of that action was not important. She’d been ignorant of both possibilities and that was enough to have his sympathy.

“Oh this is bleeding priceless. You bunch of hypocritical wankers. You’re gonna be down on teach here just because she stuck by her clan and carried out her duty? Yeah, ‘cause none of you are sworn to secrecy on life-saving missions and all with the mysterious actions. I can see shattered glass houses everywhere. I’m off, don’t wait up kiddies.” And Spike huffed out of the flat, irritation adding an extra energetic burst to his step. As much as he loved Buffy, her getting all cut up over that wanker was more than he wanted to watch or deal with. Now that he had his strength back and had half a chance of defending himself, he wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Spike?” Her heartbroken voice held just the right note of fear as his back taunted her.

“Later, Slayer.” And he was gone, his coat just barely flapping through the door frame before he slammed the door shut behind him.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Would you shut the hell up?” Face almost frightening in its fury, Angelus paced and ended up riling himself up more than he was calming himself down.

Drusilla whimpered, and then moaned as she desperately clutched her head. “Daddy’s angry,” she stated confidently and it was enough to stop Angelus mid-stride. He turned incredulous eyes on her and almost choked on his sarcastic burst of laughter.

“Gee Dru, you think?” He wanted to hit something, he wanted to make somebody hurt. He looked longingly at Dru and flinched at her high-pitched warbling of danger and the stars and wondered what the fuck Spike had been thinking to claim her as his destiny. The little try-hard must have been desperate if he had to cling to Dru’s pussy hairs for over a century. Just one day and he’d wanted to stake her. If he hadn’t trained her so well on how to please him he might well have resolved that situation. Might have been funny to see Roller Boy cry.

Just like that his mood had improved. Nothing like a good plan to knock the wind right out of Spike’s sails to make him feel better.

“You know, I’m really getting sick of my every plan being fucked up by that annoying slayer and her ridiculous crippled side-kick…and the humans…God, why won’t they just die?” Angelus resumed his pacing, desperately trying to piece together another plan that might take out the teacher and any inkling she had of crossing him and jamming him full of soul again. He felt a horrible sense of foreboding that that window of opportunity had whistled as it passed him by. Now that she knew not to be somewhere unprotected after dark, she’d be holed up somewhere safe. His every thwarted attempt to take down the Slayer and make her cry right up to the final event was pissing him off. The only shining moment had been his abduction, torment and final turning of her mother. He was positive that that kind of thing a girl could never recover from.

“Where is Joyce, anyway? She was gone when I got up tonight.”

Dru looked suddenly terrified and her whimpering calls for forgiveness as usual made absolutely no sense to him. He was blazingly angry just the same, because this was Dru and if Dru was twittering this bad and beginning to cry, she knew exactly what was going on and furthermore that he would be furious about it. So what could he do but satisfy her expectations.

“What did you do, Dru?”

She backed away at the harsh look on his face, at the sneering curve of his bottom lip. He knew better than to expect an answer that would make sense and accepted that he’d find out what the situation was in due course. All he could do at this point was make sure Dru got her punishment, because they both knew unless she was properly chastened, she couldn’t even come close to being a good girl.

He took a moment to admire the blood red of her velvet dress before viciously tearing it from bodice to waist. The rest of the fabric slid dejectedly over her hips and Dru took a small step back, stumbling on the fabric and landed on her bare butt.

“You are not trying to get away from me, are you, Dru?” His eyes flashed amber and he felt a snarl rumble passed his lips as she shook her head frantically. “Well, that’s good then. Come here,” he demanded and she was on her feet and before him in less than a second, making every effort to hide the twisted pleasure she felt at being ordered and abused. “On your knees, and make sure it’s good or I’ll have to make it hurt just a little bit harder.”

Without waiting for her to slowly take him into her mouth, Angelus thrust his hips and roared in satisfaction as her gagging reflex—still active even in death—pulsed around him and made him ejaculate fast. He loved this first immediate release. Loved to see his childe naked with her lips latched around his cock and keeping him up. She was perfect at distracting him from his shortcomings and truth be told, it was the only thing that had saved her. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was this good to Spike, or if the selfish little fuck was too giving to treat her like the subservient bitch she was.

She managed to swallow skilfully, not even a drop slipping passed her lips. If she hadn’t he would have hit her half way across the room, knowing from humiliating experience that his load was miniscule compared to most men. Little cock, little cum shots and his fury wound up to devastating heights yet again. He grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged her to the bedroom, not caring that her tits scraped over the hard stone floor and she was crying for him to have mercy. Oh, he’d show her mercy. When he was finished she’d be calling him Mercy.

And she’d be drowning in red when she did it.

Chapter 18

Uncomplicated jealousy had driven his every step from the Watcher’s until he stood staring up at the front door of 1630 Revello Drive. Trepidation cautioned him on entering the house, knowing that he was facing a potential existence that he’d all but turned his back on just days ago, and wary of how easy it might be to want it back. He had over a century of bloodshed in his history and the one tethered below the house in the basement was just at the beginning of that journey, and he had no doubt that Dru and Angelus had done everything to make the new menu as enticing as demonly possible.

It wouldn’t have taken much to inspire the lust for the hunt—the desire to feel human flesh splitting beneath pointed fangs just dying to feed. Quenching the hunger that could almost drive a vamp mad—particularly if heartbeats deafened the monster within—was the most important thing to a fledgling’s existence and by the sound of her stories, Joyce had already brunched on her former employees. It had horrified Buffy, but Spike could appreciate the beauty of that first bloodbath of ones known in life—and it was exhilarating to relive it for himself. Becoming somehow spiritually joined with the Slayer was intoxicating to the extent that it made his fangs itch for the many good times they’d already shared, but it didn’t dull his lust for the sheer savage orgy of feasting on the demon’s weakness.

Blood.

Everything was about blood, and just because he’d tasted Buffy’s and knew no other could come close, he could bet he had more insight into the workings of the restrained vampire downstairs than anyone else might. Than anyone else cared to.

The thud of his boots was deafening as he made his way through the house, stopping at the closed basement door to gather himself and prepare for whatever eventuality might hit him once he was down there. She knew he was here—he could hear the soft laughter that greeted his arrival and he sighed sadly. Despite it all, despite wanting to celebrate the birth of a new sister, he felt Buffy’s devastation and loss as deeply as he’d felt his own all those years ago.

The door opened easily and there was no turning back; no running back to the Scooby stronghold to listen in bitter resentment to the story of Buffy and Angel while they expected him to be objective. No shrugging off this funk of sudden inadequacy—and what you can’t get rid of, you may as well lie down with. Thus, he descended toward Joyce.

“No fancy tricks,” he warned as he took the final steps in jerky, hesitant movements. And then he could see her, her paleness fairly glowing in the wisps of moonlight that had found shelter through the wall’s patchy solidity. She looked relaxed and calm, somehow knowing that she would be receiving visitors sooner rather than later.

Though he doubted it was him she’d quite been planning on.

Staying in the dark made the meeting seem more clandestine, more evil and Spike clung to the little example of retaining who he was with devilish glee. He’d never make any kind of connection with her if he was all high and mighty—like her daughter’s merry band of white hats. Still, it scared him how easily the switch came to him—now that he was supposedly a soldier at Buffy’s side. Destiny had seemed to place him at her side, merged them together in an instant without explanation, and while there was nothing he could regret about it, he saw now it was so fast—too fast maybe—that he hadn’t had a chance to really understand the trip.

“How you holdin’ up, pet? Getting used to the dark and dank hidey spots? ‘Cause that’s what you’re all about now that you’re a monster in the underbelly of society.” He pulled up and crouched just so that he was a bit too far for her to reach, even if the chains were a little long. His reminder of where she was and what the world had in store for her seemed to stun her for a second, and the demon that was once Joyce Summers frowned.

“Are you here to stake me so my baby girl won’t be put through the trauma?” And in a flash the smile was back and Spike wandered back in his mind to another gentle beautiful lady that was destroyed by his very own existence. He so easily got lost in those recollections, painful though they might be, and almost lost sight of the here and now.

When he pushed the memories back it was almost in surprise he saw Joyce before him, staring at him with an expression so muddled he couldn’t interpret it even if he’d wanted to.

“You remind me a lot of my mum,” he began, almost unwillingly before warming up to his tale. “Don’t tell many about it—like to keep that little failure locked up in my noggin. She was sick, but beautiful. She loved me more deeply and more faithfully than any other being has. But she was dying. I was already dead by then, by the time she was getting bad. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that gentility going to waste. All that love lost to the world. I wanted to bring her with me—because she was the only one I could be sure would love me.” Spike paused, wondering why he was handing her a weapon she could flail him with. And as he thought about the wisdom of continuing, she was there, the demon that wanted blood and wasn’t fussy about where it came from.

“I’ll bet it took her two seconds to wake up and see you for the needy brat you are and she attempted to run. What did you do? Stake her because she wasn’t your widdle mommy anymore?” The lust in her gaze was tainted with her disgust, and it was so reminiscent of what Spike had suffered in the past that he barely gave it credibility.

But it was reassuring. Somewhere in there it told him he was different—that whatever Dru had turned him for was not what he had become. He’d fooled them all for a hundred years—plenty well fooled himself if the truth be told. He’d done everything he could to prove he was as big and bad as his male lineage, and while Angelus had been gone to dim the comparison it had paid off and he’d kept Drusilla at his side. Now he wondered how devoted she would have been if he’d been more true to himself. If he’d not fed as often as her ravenous nature demanded. If he’d been more involved in the beauty he could still see in the world, would she still have seen him as something special? Or would she have dropped him for the first half-devoted cock that came her way? He could appreciate the football and the dog races, but the theatre, and opera…with a little sex pistols on the side. Even beautiful women—he’d rather look at them and see the glow in their faces, and even more the glow in some of their hearts, than drain them to resemble nothing.

“I staked my mum,” he confided and felt an enormous burden of what felt strangely like guilt slip from his shoulders to the floor. “She wasn’t right for a demon. Didn’t want that kind of twisted bitch along for the ride. Had Darla for that. So the moral of the story goes—don’t be thinking I don’t have the stones to take you out if that’s what’s decided. Only met you once, Joyce, and you near cracked my head open then. No love lost between us.” Spike stood, wondering why he’d felt it necessary to come here. Nothing was resolved—except he was feeling a bit lighter. Like something was resolved in the heavy catalogue of issues that needed to be.

While he’d been lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed Joyce’s defensive huddle. Maybe his unloading had had a purpose. Seemed to knock a bit of the arrogance off this newest of fledglings, and for that, Spike felt his familiar smirk return. Bint knew he could do it. If he could dust the one that had given him life, courage and love, he could dust a sister in death. Especially one that Angelus had plans for.

And then it all came together in his head. Joyce was Angelus’s little pawn in this game and Angelus didn’t let his playthings out of sight. Spike turned back to the woman; she had slumped against the wall in discouragement. “Dru sent you out, didn’ she? Didn’t want you competing for her precious Daddy. Stupid bint probably thought the Slayer or one of her crew would stake you and you wouldn’t be coming back.” He stopped and wondered at the warning he got on the air. Angelus was on the move and an unprotected slayer abode wouldn’t be the best place to leave her mother. “Well, I got a bit of news for you, luv. The Slayer’s your only chance of staying undusty. So, you’ve got a choice. You can wait here till Angelus comes back to claim you—and he’ll belt several shades of shit out of you for leaving without his say so—and try and fill in your time with as much hunting as you can before your daughter puts your miserable existence to rest. Or, you can come with me and I’ll try an’ protect you as best I can. On the Slayer’s side you’ve got more chance of survival. Take it or leave it.”

Spike watched as the woman’s alert eyes started darting around in panic. He scrounged around in his pocket until he came up with an almost empty pack of cigarettes, flicked one out and lit up, amused at the play of emotions on her face. He knew he could feel Angelus’s approach—though now he had to work at sensing it after being so successful in stamping it out in the past. Hell, he could feel it strongly and Joyce would be newly attuned to it, making it powerful and more urgent to not be far away from home. It was rather gratifying to see how a few words could scare her into this kind of frantic haste to choose a side.

“He’s angry?”

She sounded like she could hardly believe it, and even if the demon liked a bit of rough treatment now and again, Joyce had been a rather unabused woman in life and wasn’t used to the type of terror Angelus would make his daily regimen to break his newest family member.

“You don’t disobey Angelus, pet.” Spike stopped at that and almost laughed out loud. “Well, you do, but only if you know the wanker can’t hurt you. You, he can do much more than hurt. By the time he’s finished with you you’d be as barmy as Dru. Up to you now, but I’d get on with it. Clock’s tickin’.”

The end of the cigarette glowed bright on the short end of the stick and just as Spike threw it to the floor and stamped it out, he had his answer.

“I don’t want to dust,” she offered, much of the attitude and confidence cowering under the crushing nearness of her grandsire. “Please, take me where he can’t get me?”

Spike stalled, wondering if she was playing him or if she genuinely understood what she was in for if Angelus got his hands back on her not quite scrawny body. For all he knew, this could have been the plan. Dru could have sent her off in the hopes of luring him home, and if he’d not been open to a willing suggestion of return, maybe she could trick him.

“Not bloody likely,” he affirmed quietly, feeling the spade in his hands before he swung and knocked Joyce out cold. “Right handy bit of equipment, that!” Spike put down the shovel, casually leaning it against the basement wall and then set about unchaining his casualty and left. His legs were fully healed now, thanks to Buffy’s diligence, and he had no trouble carrying the weight of another body up the stairs.

Once out in the night, Spike knew he had few choices. As much as they could sense Angelus, he’d know how to track Joyce—and quickly. There was no option of an abandoned factory or other like building. He needed somewhere Angelus had no access, and the only place Spike was allowed that Angelus wasn’t was the Watcher’s place. While he was fine about dumping the Slayer’s mother at her feet, he wasn’t too keen to re-enter the conversation. He still felt relatively pissed enough to continue his walk.

He still needed to think—and without Buffy at his side.

There was nothing for it but to return, and hope the boy at least would wet himself over the new houseguest.

With that image firmly playing in his mind, Spike grinned. Oh yes, many beautiful things left in the world. And a good humiliating event was one of them.

Chapter 19

The room had just settled into an uncomfortable silence when Spike slammed the door, dread settling with the impact of a bullet on Buffy’s heart. It was a horribly incapacitating thought to wonder if she’d so callously done the wrong thing—so thoughtlessly grieved over the impact of losing Angel to his own personal darkness right in front of the new love of her life. She didn’t have to wonder what propelled Spike’s steps away from her—she felt the betrayal of her words it in her heart. Whatever reason was behind Angel’s loss of soul, it was secondary to everything now. He was evil personified, and now she’d replaced him at her side in the fight, as well as in her heart.

What she now had with Spike was so new and untried, and Buffy wasn’t sure that Spike grasped this. They’d become bound to each other in circumstances neither of them understood and ever since, they’d been carried away on the high of such deep feeling—such depthless belonging that it had, so far, defied words. The past few days had been devoted to establishing a strong physical link between them—warriors and lovers on the brink of the fight of their lives. But they were together and that was what gave Buffy strength and confidence.

Until she’d become distracted by late breaking news and opened her big fat mouth. Angel was in her past—true, a not so distant past, but he was mostly gone from her head, definitely gone from her heart, and with what she hoped in her confidence of gypsy magic—her life.

“While it absolutely galls me to admit such a thing, Spike is right,” Giles broke into the silence. “Jenny, I apologise for my lack of tolerance. I can hardly condemn you for not sharing information when I have been as responsible for keeping you in the dark in the past. I-I’m sure it hasn’t been the easiest of times to trust in me a-after—”

“Rupert,” Jenny interjected, standing and making her way to the thoroughly repentant librarian. “I can’t let you take so much blame. I was foolish not to confide in you before now, and I am more than sorry that Buffy had to experience such a cruel—”

If there was one thing Buffy didn’t want to do, it was rehash the reason Spike had just stormed out of the place. It was time to grab the situation and shake a solution out of it. Focus. That’s what they needed—and lots of it. “Okay, you know what? We’re just gonna skip right on over Buffy’s bad experiences and move into the ‘how do we re-ensoul Angel’ part of the discussion. Really, don’t feel sorry for me. I had to go through all that to have Spike, and despite earlier, I think it could be really good for us. But we need to neutralise the Angelus and Drusilla sitch. And then, there’s Mom.”

The room seemed almost smothered in the weight of memory and a sickness fell in more than one stomach.

“Jenny, have you done it? Do you know how to give Angel back his soul?”

The first moment of lightness came with the easiness of the teacher’s smile. “I did. Just as Buffy and Spike burst into the classroom, I’d saved it all on disk. And of course there’s the hardcopy that Spike…er…retrieved when he whipped out the tower.” And there was a grin.

“That’s my guy,” Buffy confirmed with her own indulgent and loving smile. “He’s nothing if not resourceful.”

Jenny turned seductively playful within seconds. “Oh, I’ll bet you’ll find out exactly how resourceful a vampire like Spike can be.”

Xander and Giles choked together at her conspiratorial wink at Buffy, the Slayer blushing bright pink before giggling and nodding in confirmation.

“That is so something you’re never going to find out first hand.” And then she turned sombre, businesslike and determined. “Can you do the spell for my mom?”

“I could help,” interjected Willow, feeling left out with the sex implications and desperate to remind everyone that she was really coming along with her pencil spinning. “I mean, I know it would be a bit of a jump from what I’ve been doing, but I feel like I could do it. I-I think I have the power inside me to do something that big.”

Giles watched the redheaded girl he’d known as a mousy, unconfident, yet highly intelligent student and wondered how he’d missed this development. He contemplated her, seeing her radiate with faith in herself and suddenly knew that she did indeed have the power to be helpful with this spell—and quite possibly much more besides. Despite his own dabbling at magic in his youth, and the very real consequences of his ignorance, he’d embarked on this stint of watcher with the expectation of being in contact with only one special young girl. That he’d blindly fallen in with a gypsy of the clan devastated by Angelus’s run through history and a school girl with the potential to be a very great witch, not to mention Xander who—Giles stopped his mental wandering, not having the strength to convince himself that Xander had any function other than supplying his favourite jam-filled donuts. He knew that was churlish, but he was greatly irritated by the boy more often than not, even though he served a great motivation to Buffy in her nightly fight.

“How soon can this take place, Jenny?” Giles could hardly believe they were at this point, that this nightmare could actually have an end in sight—an end that wouldn’t be devastating for anyone but Angel. And perhaps Drusilla once she lost her last link to her evil world.

Buffy sat on the edge of the discussion, relief that her mother could be returned to her warring with her need to see Spike. To be near him was to feel his arms around her, giving her more security than she’d felt her entire lifetime. That he’d left angry with her was so crushing that she was periodically breathless.

There was no awareness of how much time had passed. Buffy listened vaguely with a sense of static need. She was finding it difficult to function without Spike present—without knowing he was still hers and didn’t hate her for caring for even five minutes that it was her fault Angelus was free. There was no warning—she’d barely managed to talk herself through a pep talk that everything would be fine between them when Spike kicked open the door and barked an order for an invite, her mother unconscious over his shoulder.

“Spike.” Her anxiety over how he would react to her now he was back was her first concern, her eyes sweeping painfully over the figure of her mother before pleading with him to say everything was okay. That fear that had sat like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach quietly waiting for disaster to strike came to life sharply when he avoided her eyes.

“Brought the Slayer’s mum. Angelus is out and about and he’ll be after her. Wanker probably won’t stop till he gets her, so might want to put a rush on the mojo while you can.” Spike moved to put his burden down on the suddenly vacated sofa, neither Willow nor Xander overly keen to see if Buffy’s mom would be as gracious and friendly toward them as she had been in life.

“I only have one orb of Thessula, so who do you want me to curse?” Jenny looked back and forth between Giles and Buffy, feeling surprisingly even less comfortable around the newcomer than she previously had while Spike was still in the room. It could have to do with how he swooped in like a caped avenger to save her life—without his even knowing her. Or it could be the fact that Buffy’s mother had just woken and her amber eyes were watching her with the intentness of purpose.

“Curse?” Joyce slowly sat up, her eyes never wavering from the suddenly apprehensive gypsy. “You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed, her body moving in such a slow seductive manner that most of the room was oblivious to the danger Jenny was in. Standing now and almost fully straightened, Joyce Summers was ready to attack—until Spike stood in front of her and grabbed her around the neck, his fingers digging in painfully until the focus on the teacher was gone and Joyce was growling in pain.

“You’ve got no bloody say in this scenario. I brought you here to save your worthless life. You attack the teach and I’ll have nothing but a handful of dust to remember you by. See that girl over there? The one is your daughter? Don’t go banking on the fact that she’ll be too soft to do it; slayer is one tough bird. There’s no chance she’ll sacrifice anyone here just because you wear her mother’s face.” His voice was hard, more than a little bit mean but Joyce could see the truth to it. She didn’t know Buffy like she’d thought she had, so it would be foolhardy to try and take her daughter on in an untried situation. There was one fundamental point to all of this—she didn’t want to be dust. She wanted immortal life—wanted to see how the world would end.

Her sire had told her very little about this situation with the soul that had taken her own sire from her for a century and more. Drusilla was never very lucid about things and whatever explanations she offered they were tempered with rhymes and strange sayings that Joyce couldn’t decipher. It had ended up just being fun to make things up—pretend scenarios that Drusilla might be prattling on about. Now it would seem that she could have benefited from knowing what the whole soul thing was about.

It was undeniable though—it sounded bad. It sounded like something she wanted no part of. “Whatever your plan is, leave me out of it.” She watched them warily while deliberately moveing back to the sofa. Her eyes contemplated the elder man in the room, remembering his vague familiarity and becoming distracted by the need to remember.

When she returned her attention to the others, the dark-haired woman was preparing something and Joyce realised she should have been paying more attention. She didn’t know what they’d planned, didn’t see the final decision pass from Buffy to the teacher. Nerves and helplessness wound up tighter and tighter until Joyce felt the need to run, to tear at throats and escape now before it would be forever too late. None of them seemed to be watching her anymore, though. Not even her intolerable daughter’s school friends. They’d all decided this magic was more interesting than a friend’s mother turning up a vampire and hungry for their blood. Didn’t they know how easily she could grasp hold of their hair and claim their throat as her wineglass for the night?

That image put a smile on her face—particularly the one where it was Xander Harris. She owed him for his uncoordinated yet successful attack that landed her painfully at the bottom of her own basement steps and at the mercy of her daughter.

She couldn’t help it if it was comical watching Buffy’s only male friend waving a bundle of burning herbs and incense in the air like a really ungifted new-ager. The impatient glances she received were too much on top of the stress, too much added to this weird beginning she’d had and Joyce had nothing left but to laugh. The dark-haired woman passed something to Willow and the redhead was tossing a handful of stones within their tight human circle. It was really quite hilarious in that nervy frightened way. Having no clue what they were planning to do—or if it was going to be to her—Joyce laughed it up, throwing out distracting insults thick and fast in an effort to distract them.

Until Buffy stepped up and slapped her hard. Then she played on the girl’s vulnerability and guilt to good effect. “You hit me,” she said, the shock in her voice really well acted as the demon relished the flush of apology already trembling on Buffy’s lips.

“Too right she bloody well did, you hag.” Spike had seen enough and felt dread at every flinch and sideways look of devastation that Buffy aimed at the undead demon with her mother’s face. It was enough to make him realise that his earlier anger at the mention of Angelus and his previous influence in the slayer’s life had been nothing but battered ego reacting—and he was judging Buffy on Drusilla’s performance of unwavering faith in her sire. “Now back off or I might have to teach you how to stay in line as well.”

Joyce didn’t question why she was suddenly afraid of Spike. She’d been sent to him from Dru with the purpose of reminding him of the darkness he’d rejected and left behind. Not for one second did Dru accept that he was gone for good, and Joyce had just assumed that he was too weak-willed to say no to Buffy. The glint of hardness she’d just seen in the coldness of his human eyes was enough to set her straight. She didn’t think Spike would really be anywhere or do anything he didn’t want to do and that made her suddenly apprehensive about going too far and testing his loyalty to Buffy in keeping her demonised mother alive.

When she ducked her head and their attention diverted, the sound of foreign words tickled her ears while something else tugged at her insides. Joyce moaned low and pained in her throat as the teacher sustained her tranced incantation, her nails clawing at her own flesh, leaving bloody scratches down her arms. The orb glowed and the panic whipped through Joyce like wildfire. She didn’t know—wasn’t sure that this show was for her and that her grandsire wasn’t in line to be put out to pasture, but the fear was building so high that she felt like screaming.

“Acum.”

And she did scream, the sound exploding from her throat in a squalling ball of terror and rage, and then the pain consumed, playing pictures in her head that suddenly had new meaning, had spirit attached and she was falling, dying, killing. All her evil misdeeds, her crime and sins washed up from her aching belly, searing heat in her throat as she brought it up raw, spraying the carpet burgundy as she attempted to purge the hate that had directed her killing. That had murdered her employees like they were nothing but vermin undeserving of life.

As the circle calmed, as the crowd looked on, a souled Joyce wept.

And a thwarted Angelus slept.

Chapter 20 

He awoke gasping. As the world came into focus, it was the look of terror on Dru’s face that snapped him fully back to reality. He stopped the sickening human impulse and roared his distaste with a stream of vicious snarls of obscenity.

“What the fuck are you doing staring at me like that while I’m trying to sleep?”

He sat up, the blood red sheet slipping to his naked groin and showcasing his hard torso. He liked the shy way she looked at him, mixed with that dark seductive temptress that wanted him, no matter how he abused her. And more often than not, his cock was in charge of how much he forgave and gave it to her; but if there was one thing that really got on his nerves, it was waking up suddenly with her staring at him, face shadowed with the look of doom.

“All of Princess’s children have run away to live in the sun.” A swollen tear slid in exaggerated slowness down a pale cheek, but it only added to her ethereal beauty. “They want to hurt Daddy, too. Don’t let them take you back. Please?” Her miserable sniff did nothing to the hardness of his heart and he sighed in exasperation.

“You woke me up to tell me this crap that I already knew?” He was already desperate and he had this churning sensation in his gut that it was already out of his hands—that he was about to lose it all. There was no doubt that in the past his problem-solving skills had been innovative, but this seemed to be a unique situation. He could face down mobs baying for his blood, could escape burning barns even when deserted by his sire, and he could make any mortal writhe in excruciating emotional pain until their own end—but he couldn’t seem to come up with a plan that would succeed against a gypsy under slayer protection. They apparently strove for only one end—to keep his foul soul joined to his existence.

If only he’d been able to fucking kill the bitch and inflict a little torment on the watcher like he’d planned, life would be beyond sweet about now. All he could see through a hate-reddened haze was how they must all think him a fool—a figure of ridicule that threatened no danger to them at all. It made the rage burn right through him, made every part of him alert with purpose. He needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t what they thought—he was still dangerous, he meant more than the snickering fun they’d poked at his less than generous proportions. For that alone he should make them pay.

Except he knew deep inside that it was too late and they’d catch him before he had the chance. He felt like he was approaching his last meal, facing his last night in the world—like Jesus—before he was lost forever with only the imprint of his existence left floating in the air.

New eyes saw his childe. Dru, white and frightened and them both knowing that too soon she would face immortality alone. An unaccustomed rush of affection hit him and he opened his arms wide to receive her, not even feeling irritated that she was crying or acting childlike in her need for him. He kissed her forehead, a hand gently cupping a small breast and kneading it as he grieved. It wasn’t like him to give up, but he wasn’t going to fall so low as to look a fool in front of them. He wasn’t going to run around like a headless chicken for a solution that was unattainable.

Dru loved him irrevocably and the last time he’d lost her, it had been without warning. Once he’d changed, and degraded with a filthy conscience, he’d been unable to look at her and he’d lost so much with that. He had a chance here to make her remember the truth of him; make her pine forever for what he’d been to her. Daddy. And so he led her to his bed, to his body, felt her shudder in his arms as he made this time about her and how he was able to care for others, if not love them. He wasn’t Spike, but he could be fair. He could reward Dru for her years of devotion.

The soft kiss he bestowed on her unsuspecting lips was a gift. She looked at him in wonder, unprepared for this moment yet seizing and embracing it with her cold heart. It wasn’t the first time she’d been treated with affection—Spike often moved her in this way. But it meant so much more coming from one who never really had. Not with the darkness of his eyes shining in place of amber. There was sincerity there, and it shook her to her very depths.

“Oh,” she cried and she settled over his body with finality.

Understanding flashed in his eyes and at last a plan was formed. “Come with me, Dru? Let me protect you always?”

Her answer was to push him to his back and straddle him, moaning in despaired joy as the tip of his cock soothed her aching flesh. She rubbed her wet folds around him, gasping as she slid slowly down and took him in as shallowly inside as his length allowed. They stared into each other’s eyes, coloured irises merging with demon’s gold and she quickened her pace, feeling nothing but happiness that it was settled and he would be with her forever. His fingers scraped over pert nipples and he smiled at her, lips stretched by an emotion that was unfamiliar. Pleasant.

Right.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy couldn’t force herself to go near her. Her mother was a broken woman, wailing on Giles’s carpet as she dealt with the death she had brought upon the families she’d known best in this pissant town.

She focused on Spike, so grateful that he was here, that he’d brought her mom to her. They had ground to cover, she had fences to mend, but God, she just hoped he could understand why she’d been hit at random by the guilt of releasing Angelus on the world. When their eyes clashed she was almost glad, even though he burned her with his uncertain rejection. She wished that reassuring him could be as simple as offending him had been. That she could just walk over to him, take him into her arms and kiss him senseless so that it was easy to drain the thoughts of earlier from his head.

His look of longing made her wonder why she’d thought it would be too hard. Why she allowed her brain to complicate everything up until she was too scared to take the risk. Her heart was too eager this time and before she’d engaged her brain her feet were on the move, and with tears in her eyes, she flung herself into his arms.

His embrace was tight and she could hear him swallowing hard, her wet face smashed into the column of his throat. He felt warm and essential and Buffy knew without any doubt she wouldn’t get through this reunion with her mother without him at her side. Her body shook with the tears she’d tried so hard to hold back, but being with him, being understood by him opened a dam that she’d never known she had blocked. Buffy clamped hold of a section of his throat with her teeth, her tongue teasing the flesh as she moaned her sadness against his skin. God, he was hers. She needed him so much and he was hers.

“I love you,” she said after a while of gentle rocking, succumbing to the safety of the hold when he didn’t lessen the strength in the band of his arms around her or let her go. “It was a shock earlier, to know it was my fault. But as soon as you walked out the door, I didn’t even care anymore. I only care about you. I love you.”

“Buffy,” he started, his voice tired and resigned, but as she pulled away and the fear was more than obvious on her face, he couldn’t hold onto the resentment that had him tearing out of there in the first place. “It’s all right, sweet. A bloke doesn’t react well to hearing about his girl’s first, and that your first was bloody Angel of all miserable creatures, it just hit too many weeping sores. Let’s not give the git too much power. All’s forgiven. Now get back here and snog until my lips bleed.”

There was immediate disappointment that he didn’t return the words, and Buffy struggled to hide her hurt and wondered just how over it he really was. But the promise of Spike lips was too much and she drifted closer until the barest brush of his mouth against hers had her breathing heavy with forgetting the pitfalls of their reunion. She felt a little part of her die as his tongue hesitantly sought contact with hers, burned to a crisp in a shock explosion of the power of her love. It was overwhelming, it was distracting and she was grateful for it. He tasted her mouth, swirled his tongue around hers and traced her teeth slowly as his hands clasped her head, fingers tangled in her hair. It was sensual to extremes and Buffy felt light headed and dizzy when at last he pulled away.

“You’re the one, Buffy,” he confirmed huskily, his hands still gently cupping her face and showering her with awe as her happy tears fell. “And I love you so much it hurts.”

“Oh.” She shuddered with happiness, the tears falling faster and heavier yet somehow making her fill with his strength. He had faith in her, he loved her so everything would be all right. Everything would work out whether she believed it could or not.

The door slamming behind a very excitable Giles had them jumping guiltily apart and taking notice again of what was happening in the room around them.

“I’ve got it!” Giles proclaimed, a similar orb to the one used earlier held aloft in his hand as he presented it with a flourish to Jenny. He wore a soppy, very pleased-with-himself grin and the couple were lost in that sweet moment of mutual admiration they’d momentarily lost with the emergence of Angelus.

“So we’re back on with the smelly herbs?” Xander seemed overly keen to grab up the brittle bunch of dried twigs and wave them in the air again and Giles smiled rather more accommodatingly than he’d been with the boy all year.

“I-if Jenny isn’t too tired?” Giles turned enquiring eyes to the swaying teacher who was quite obviously exhausted from her earlier efforts.

“I think we would all feel a lot safer if we just did this. And Willow is still here so she can help me.” Jenny smiled as the eager young would-be witch leapt forward, her enthusiasm almost blinding in the sombre atmosphere of the room.

“Absolutely. I can help with whatever is needing help. I’m all with the helpfulness. Just call me Helpful Willow.” And she grinned, all her teeth showing and exhausting the adults in one charged moment.

Buffy stepped forward, eyeing her mother warily as she continued to sob her pain, completely oblivious to her surroundings. It made her heart clench yet forced a realisation she wasn’t ready yet to face. Nothing was practical in this circumstance—she had no way of knowing how she could continue to be raised by a vampire, while she was a slayer.

“Do we need anything else besides the glowy orb thingy? Because if you need Angelus to be here, I’m thinking we need to change how we go about this.” There was worry in the crossed brows and arms, yet Jenny dispelled it all with a confident smile.

“No, Buffy. I can do it wherever he is. Another twenty minutes or so and it will all be over. We can all go back to normal.”

As one they turned to observe an inconsolable Joyce and wondered if life had ever been normal in the first place.

“What about Dru?” As much as she hated thinking of the skanky nutjob, they had to be alert to how she might react in this. Buffy chanced a look at Spike, relieved to see him not so torn up at the thought of what Dru’s undecided fate.

“Let’s just get the wanker back and then we’ll decide on Dru. Yeah?”

There was general agreement and then the process began again.

Buffy sat nervously by her mother and waited.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He’d never allowed himself to know her sweetness. He’d spent his time corrupting it, making her twisted and insecure and he’d loved every small consequence of it. But the newness wasn’t disappointing. It seemed fitting, experiencing this when it was their last in this world. The last they would look into each other’s eyes and see a world that couldn’t handle them the way they were.

There was more out there—or at least, in a ‘there’ somewhere. There was Hell, and that was most likely the home they could never abandon once this night was through. He loved to watch her slide up and down on his cock, loved to see the pleasure he alone could give her as her sire. As the one she loved beyond all others, even her own childe.

There was silence between them now and he was mesmerised by the tears that had multiplied and fell without artifice. She was sad and it came from her heart. He allowed it this time, not having the thrill for punishment when he’d decided to not run but make sure they could never find him.

His orgasm approached slowly, building around each tormenting grunt from her throat, each excruciating clench of her muscles as she squeezed him into memory. “That’s it, baby. Fuck me hard, Dru. Show Daddy how perfect you are.” The words were harsh though his voice was low, and then the moment was reached. The tears dribbled off her chin as she climbed off him, leaving his cock standing and straining for release. With a move more violent than any that had occurred in the last ten minutes, Dru struck, tearing a chair to pieces despite her blurred vision. One long shattered spear of wood was held in her hands as she climbed back onto him, taking him back inside her slick tunnel as she caressed the wood and stared at him appealingly.

“The only way?” she asked, yet acceptance made her lower her eyes. She quickly spurred them back to completion, positioning the stick between them so a sharpened end rested against each of their blackened hearts.

And as the little death exploded within and gave them a moment of sexual bliss, Dru saw the gleam in his eye as she struck and slammed herself down on the stake, pushing it down as she exploded into eternity and her dust mingled with the scattered remains beneath her.

It was the only way.

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