CHAPTER EIGHT
 
Dinner was a quiet affair, Buffy drinking more wine that she did eating of food, Bill joining her in drinking wine when the fridge ran out of beer, and Joyce looking back and forth between them, down to her plate, and then back at them.
 
“So, if you two get together…. and we become a family…. is this what dinner is going to be like every night? Mom swilling wine like a… wine-swilling thing, Dad-Bill-Mr. Patterson drinking even more wine, but making faces about it, and me – trying to make conversation with two drunks.”
 
“We’re not drunk.”
 
“Not drunk, Joyce. Don’t like it enough to get drunk on it.”
 
Buffy congratulated herself on not even blinking at the very Spike-like comment, but she sent Bill a sideways glance.
 
“Well, you’re not exactly pleasant company,” Joyce announced, standing and picking up her plate. “I’m going to go to bed now. Please don’t do anything to traumatize me.”
 
“If you stay in your room, you won’t have to worry about it,” Buffy said, her emotions over the situation making her more snappish than usual.  With an offended huff, Joyce took her plate into the kitchen and put it into the dishwasher with more noise than was necessary.  Buffy dropped her head down on her arms, barely missing the plate full of food. “I’m such a bitch.”
 
He sighed. “Don’t worry about it. If you hadn’t said it, I probably would have.”
 
She raised her head to meet his gaze. “So we both suck?”
 
He gave a noncommittal shrug, then nodded. “I think, as the adults here, we have to remember that she’s dealing with more than a few issues herself. It can’t be easy to learn that your dead father was a vampire and that your teacher, who looks like him, may or may not be harboring his soul. We should cut her some slack.”
 
“Okay, that’s obviously you speaking because Spike would never be so understanding about… Oh hell, yes he probably would. I’d forgotten how good he was with Dawn. And he was still evil then.”
 
“Dawn?”
 
“My sister. More madness that I’ll cover some other time.” She looked at him and her lips twitched. “You’d think, if Spike was really in there somewhere, he’d save me all this explaining and just fill you in on everything.”
 
“If he were really in here? I thought that’s what your friend – whose arrival and departure I will freak out about in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much – found to be true? She even said hi to him.”
 
“I know, I know. I didn’t really mean ‘if’ as in I don’t think he is. I was just… I don’t know. Complaining because he isn’t making himself more useful?”
 
“I’ll speak to him about that,” Bill responded, his own lips twitching just enough to show he was kidding.
 
“See that you do,” Buffy said, her small smile more genuine. She stood up. “I’m going to go apologize to my daughter. Feel free to finish your meal.”
 
 
XXXXXX
 
Buffy entered the kitchen to find Joyce staring out the window, her eyes suspiciously shiny. Buffy walked up behind her and put her arms around her waist, resting her head on Joyce’s back.
 
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “I’m so wrapped up in my own emotions, I forgot this was kind of a big deal for you too.”
 
“Just tell me one thing… what’s going to happen now?”
 
“Oh sweetheart. If I only knew….”
 
“Baby steps.” Bill’s voice preceded him into the kitchen. He had both hands full with his plate and Buffy’s. “You need a dog,” he said, as he set down her barely touched food.
 
“I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow.” Buffy took the plate and busied herself putting the food into a container in the refrigerator. Leaving Bill and Joyce staring at each other.
 
“Baby steps?”
 
He nodded. “Your mom and I are going to have to try to get to know each other as if we really were almost complete strangers. We’ll date, we’ll have fun, we’ll probably have an argument or two, we’ll kiss and makeup… at some point we’ll have to decide if this is working or not. The only difference between me and anybody else your mother might have dated, is that—”
 
“Is that I look just like you.”
 
Buffy spoke up. “You don’t look ‘just like’ him. If you were a boy, it might be harder, but you’re not, so the resemblance isn’t going to be that obvious to anyone else. Neither one of you noticed it before. We can see it now because we know you’re related… distantly. I don’t think anyone else is going to think twice about it.”
 
“Is that all you’re worried about?” Bill said. “That we might look alike to your friends?”
 
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a challenging stare.  “What do I call you now?”
 
“At school, you call me Mr. Patterson,” he said firmly. “Here… I don’t know. You decide what feels right for you.”
 
“Okay, Cuz,” she said, an almost sincere smile on her face. “Now I really am going to my room. Night, grownups.”
 
“Goodnight, Joy,” Buffy said, using the nickname she’d used when Joyce was a baby.
 
“Goodnight, Joyce,” Bill echoed.
 
XXXXXX
 
“Now what?”
 
“I don’t know. I should probably go home. I need a shower, and a change of clothes.” He gestured at the warmup suit he’d thrown on over his dojo clothes. “What do you want to do?”
 
“Nothing that involves baby steps,” she muttered.
 
He chuckled, a warm sound that went all the way to her toes.  He put his arms around her in a loose embrace. “You know what’s nice about baby steps?”
 
“What?” She looked up at him, prepared to pout if she didn’t get what she wanted.
 
“They’re really small, so if you have long legs, you can take them two or three at a time….” He brushed his lips across hers and tightened his grip.
 
“And,” she titled her head to reach his mouth again. “If you have superpowers, you can jump right over them.”
 
“And that….”
 
 
After standing up kissing for what seemed to be both hours and just moments, Buffy found herself pressed up against the refrigerator, pinned there by a body that was feeling more and more like Spike every second.  At one of their short pauses for breath, she shook her head and pushed him away gently.
 
“Buffy….” His groan was so familiar, she almost allowed herself to shut her eyes and just pretend. Fortunately, he realized what he was doing and nodded his agreement as she continued to hold him at arm’s length. “You’re right. It’s one thing to skip the baby steps, it’s something else to pretend the gap we’re leaping over doesn’t exist.”
 
They separated and stood, breathing heavily and not meeting each other’s eyes.
 
“This might be harder than I thought,” he said with a rueful laugh.
 
“Ya think?” She gave a small snort as she smiled back at him.
 
“We can do this. We will date, like respectable grown up people do. I will take you to dinner, the movies, whatever. I’ll be charming and fun. We’ll include Joyce sometimes so she doesn’t feel neglected. I’ll give you a chaste goodnight kiss at the door for a while. And eventually, I’ll invite you to have dinner at my apartment. I’ll set the mood, pour some wine, and seduce you on my couch. Baby steps.”
 
“How many dinners and movies are you planning on?”
 
“Oh, I don’t know. What’s a reasonable number? Two, three?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
 
Buffy giggled and moved closer to him. “Two or three sounds about right. We don’t want to rush things.”
 
“Nope. No rushing.” He pulled her into his chest and let her feel his lack of interest in waiting. “But no dawdling, either.”
 
“Oh, absolutely no dawdling. I’m not much of a dawdler. I more action-girl.” She frowned. “That sounded dirtier than I meant it to.”
 
“I think I like action-girl,” he murmured into her neck. “She sounds like my kind of woman.”
 
“I hope she is,” Buffy sighed back, enjoying his warm breath on her neck even as she noticed he was nibbling on the same spot Spike liked to nibble. “We should stop now,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “Or I’m going to end up a refrigerator magnet again.”
 
“You’re right,” he said, letting her go with obvious reluctance.  “I’d like to blame what you do to me on Spike, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t be just as hot for you if he’d never crossed my path.”
 
“Ditto for me,” she said. “Although, I can’t be as sure. I mean, I didn’t know Spike was in there.”  She tapped on his chest. “ So I can’t say that’s why I went out with you. But I’d be lying if I said the way you look and feel isn’t the reason I’m behaving like such a slut.”
 
“And thank you, Great Uncle William, for passing down those genes.”
 
Buffy giggled. “Well, I’m pretty sure Joyce is his only direct descendant, but yay for family resemblances.”
 
“Yay, indeed.  Okay. I’m going to take my overheated self out of here. But I’d like to see you again tomorrow. Maybe in the afternoon? We can go someplace and do something where we’re not likely to encounter vampires?”
 
“Sounds like fun.  Call me in the morning.”
 
She walked him to the door, frowning when he opened it and appeared ready to walk out without even a goodbye. He hesitated on the threshold, then turned back and pecked her quickly on the cheek. 
 
“See you tomorrow, Buffy,” he said as he made his escape before either of them could initiate another round of kisses leading to nothing but frustration.
 
“See you….” Buffy watched until his car pulled away, then closed the door and leaned against it, her forehead pressed into the wood.
 
 
XXXXXX
 
 
“Mom?”
 
“Yes, honey?”
 
Joyce shook her head.  “Nothing. I was gonna ask how it’s going with Mr. Patterson-Bill-Cuz, but I guess it’s none of my business. It just seems like you guys have been seeing each other a lot and….”
 
“It’s going,” Buffy said. “Like he told you, we’re taking baby steps. We want to know that we really like each other for who we are now, and not that your dad’s soul is pushing us into something that we’re going to regret.”
 
“You don’t want to be… together… again with my father?” Joyce’s voice was small and it was impossible to miss the sadness in it.
 
“Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea how much I’d love that – but that isn’t what’s going on here. Bill isn’t going to magically turn into Spike just because we… we take the relationship to another level.” Ignoring Joyce’s coughing “have sex”, she went on, “He’s always going to be who he is, who he has been for the past forty-some years. I have to know that I could love that man for himself. And he has to know he could love me, even if he didn’t have Spike’s soul nagging at him.”
 
She took a deep breath. “This is a lot more important than just finding out you suddenly like to drink Jack Daniels and write poetry.”
 
“But if you do… if you both think you’re falling in love, we could be a family, couldn’t we?”
 
Buffy sighed. “Joyce, we’ve only been dating for a few weeks. I think it’s a little bit early to be talking about being a family.” She shook her head. “You know, when you were little, I tried really hard not to let you get too used to any of the guys I was dating unless I had some reason to think it might turn into something… permanent.”
 
“Which it never did.”
 
“Exactly. But this time, you were in on this right from the beginning, and I thought it would be okay by now. That you were probably old enough to know sometimes relationships work out and sometimes they don’t…. That you wouldn’t have unrealistic expectations about—”
 
“About a man who already thinks he loves you, who you can’t keep your hands off, and who…. in case you forgot…. has my reincarnated daddy inside him?  I don’t know why I might think this could be any different….”
 
Buffy just stared at her. “Out of the mouths of babes….” she muttered. “I’ll be right back.”
 
XXXXXXXX
 
Buffy ran to get her phone, forgetting in her haste that it was sitting on the coffee table in the same room. By the time she’d run all over the house, from her bedroom, to the kitchen, to the basement, and back to the living room to shake out her purse on the couch, Joyce was laughing.
 
“Mom? Mom. Mom!”
 
“What?” Buffy glanced up from pawing through the contents of her purse to see Joyce pointing at the coffee table with a big grin on her face. She stood up and stretched.
 
“You obviously have an important phone call to make that will probably not be something my innocent little ears should listen to, so I’m just going to leave for school now.”  As she picked up her tablet and put it into her book bag, she added, “Bill doesn’t have any classes till second block, so you shouldn’t have any trouble reaching him.”  With another giggle, she waved her way out the door, leaving Buffy glaring at her.
 
“Disrespectful kid,” Buffy muttered, even as she was touching Bill’s name in her list of frequently called numbers.
 
“Good morning, love. What’s up so early in the day?”
 
“It’s time.”
 
He was silent for a few seconds, then, “Does that mean what I think it means?”
 
“It does. And if you see Joyce today and she says ‘you’re welcome’, just tell her not to be a smartass.”
 
“So I have Joyce to thank for having to spend the entire rest of the day hiding behind my desk so as not to offend my students?”
 
Buffy giggled.  “Well, sort of. She just said something that made me realize we really aren’t in a normal situation, and maybe trying to pretend we are isn’t the best way to handle it. It’s just making us act weird.”
 
“Speak for yourself. I think I’m behaving perfectly fine for a forty-five year old man who is sporting wood more often than a teenager.”
 
“Maybe we can take care of that problem tonight.” She paused, then said, “And maybe I can get to sleep without—”
 
“Without?”
 
“Nothing. Never mind. Come here after school and we’ll work out the when and where.”
 
He sighed heavily. “Right. I forgot. It’s either try to pretend Joyce isn’t just across the hall, or leave her alone all night while you stay with me. It’s going to be complicated, isn’t it?”
 
“We’ll work something out. Tonight… I don’t know. But after this, maybe we can just spend weekends at your place and Joyce can… I don’t know. We’ll think of something. It’s not like you’re going to be moving in right away.”
 
“Or ever!” she added quickly when there was silence on his end. “I wasn’t trying to—”
 
“Buffy. I’m not staying quiet because that spooked me. I’d like to think if we still like each other a few months from now, we might have that conversation, but I’m not stupid enough to think either one of us should be thinking about it yet. I just wasn’t sure how to respond without sounding like I wanted to run if that’s what you were thinking.”
 
“Oh. Well, okay then. We’re both being sensible, adult people.”
 
“Sensible adult people who can’t keep their hands off each other.”
 
“There’s that.” 
 
“I need to get my room set up for the day, love. And possibly run some cold water on my wrists… I’ll see you this afternoon.”
 
“Okay. See you later.”
 
 
XXXXXXX
 
“Okay, Mom, here’s the plan.”
 
“There’s a plan?”
 
“Well you don’t have one, do you?” Joyce rushed on. “I didn’t think so. Fortunately you have me to make one for you.”
 
Buffy blinked in bewilderment. “Yay?” she ventured.
 
“Yes, yay. Rather than have to spend the evening watching you two killing time until you can send me to bed, or invent an excuse to go out for a while, meanwhile exposing me to way more sexual tension than anyone my age should have to deal with, I’m going to fix things.”
 
“Fix things?” Buffy scolded herself for sounding like an echo, but having her teenage daughter making plans so that Buffy could have sex with her boyfriend was a new wrinkle in their already unconventional lives.
 
Joyce sighed. “Are you paying any attention at all?  Here’s the deal. I’m super strong. I fight and kill monsters. I’m not a child. I babysit for people whose children actually are too young to stay by themselves. All the doors in our house have locks, as do all the windows, thanks to your slayer paranoia. So, I’m perfectly capable of fixing myself something to eat, eating it, and taking myself to bed at a reasonable hour after doing my homework, and sleeping safely though the night in an empty house.” She stared at Buffy’s frowning expression. “Do you see where I’m going with this?”
 
“I think so. You’re throwing me out of my own house so you can tell yourself you aren’t interfering with my ability to have a sex life. Is that about it?”
 
Joyce rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes, basically. I’m making it possible for you and the man you’re falling in love with to have a romantic evening without having to worry that you’re scarring me for life.”
 
“Oh. Well, when you put it that way….”
 
“So go get ready. Pack an overnight case and I’ll tell Bill to take you to a nice hotel if his apartment is too messy to take you home with him.”
 
“You won’t tell him any such thing! You shouldn’t be discussing this with him!”
 
“Too late,” Joyce laughed. “We spend the day in the same building, remember?”
 
“Oh my God,” Buffy mumbled.
 
“It’s okay. He was cool about it… although he did have a little trouble looking me in the eye the rest of the day…”
 
“Oh my God,” was the only response as Buffy went upstairs to take a shower and pack an overnight bag.