Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Chp.12

Meet the So-called Family

Info: 1st chapter

She'd never seen Spike as nervous as he is at this moment. He'd been fidgeting, and when he wasn't doing that he was pacing.

She had finally gotten him to settle down, by offering to play cards with him. Which was a big mistake. She watches as a smug smile makes it's way across his handsome features.

"Gin, Luv." Spike lays his cards out, and sure enough he has Gin, again.

"Now I know you're cheating." She crosses her arms over her chest, and glares at him. "No one can possibly get Gin four times in a row."

Smirking at her mischievously, "I wasn't cheating. I just have a good reason to want to win. Now, where's my payment, Pet." He says, crossing his own arms behind his head as he lies back against the headboard, with a satisfied look on his face.

They'd been making bets before each hand. She should have guessed that she'd lose every last one. This hands bet being, if she won, Spike had to go to the cafeteria and grab everything they had containing chocolate. If he won, he got a kiss. Her bet had always been the same, and she had yet to get her nummy chocolaty goodness.

"I should really know better than to ever make a bet with you, by now." She retorts, and leans forward to give him his payment.

Completely in their own world, while they kiss, they hadn't noticed that people were at the door, until one of them clears their throat, and makes them jump apart.

Looking up from Buffy's flushed face, and over her back at the door, he sees three people standing in the entrance. A man he's never seen before, the lady that is actually supposed to be his mother, and another guy he vaguely remembers seeing in the delusions. He was right; both of the men look like total anal retentive, wankers, in all degrees of the word.

Buffy looks over her shoulder at the people. "Quentin Travers and Wesley?" She lets out a chuckling breath.

"William, oh my dear. Are you alright?" The lady makes her way to the side of the bed, Buffy scrambles off of Spike with a furious blush rising on her cheeks.

"Mother?" He doesn't know what to do. He suddenly realizes that the cards are still lying on the bed, he picks one up and starts flicking it through his fingers.

Buffy reaches over and stills his hand. He had started bending it back and forth nervously, and it was going to crease and mark the thing if she didn't stop him.

"William, son. Are you quite all right? You look as if you've seen a ghost." Quentin asks, making his own way over to the bedside.

Jumping from the bed, Buffy steps in between Spike and Quentin. Surprised at herself. She had moved faster than she thought was possible in this dimension.

"Miss, my son is distressed, and I would like to know what is wrong." Quentin stares the pretty little blonde girl down, not giving an inch. "Now, if you would please step aside, so that I may see him." He places a hand on her shoulder, and tries to gently move her out of the way.

Stiffening at the touch, she reaches up and wrenches his hand from her shoulder. "No, I will not move. You aren't going one more step closer to him." She grates through her gritted teeth. "Please don't ever touch me again, Travers."

The old man looks at her quizzically, "Excuse me, I think you may have me mixed up with someone else. My name is Quentin Osborne. Young lady. William, tell her who I am, and to remove herself."

Looking up at the man, who looks nothing like his father, "Buffy stays, and I have no soddin' clue who the hell you are mate." Spike answers, eyebrows drawn, and serious.

"Don't know who I am?" The man asks, astonished. "What is this? You know a perfect stranger, but you don't know who your family is?" Quentin's face turns an ugly shade of red due to the anger rising in his body.

"Wouldn't say I don't know who any of you all are. I do know my own mother. As for the rest of you, I've never seen you all in my life." Spike explains, "Oh and that perfect stranger is my girlfriend, you Pillock." He adds for good measure, pointing at the man trying his best to get around Buffy.

Not agreeing with the behavior of the two young people, Quentin clears his throat. "And just how did you two come to know each other?" He asks, looking from one blonde to the other.

Buffy looks over her shoulder, as Spike looks to her from the bed. They nod to each other, knowing they're going to have to tell the whole delusion story, yet again.

"You know this story is getting so old." Buffy quips, rolling her eyes, as Spike chuckles. "you'd think that Dr.Giles would've told them what was going on, but noooo. What happened to the Mr. Explainy guy that he used to be?"

"Don't know, luv. And yes telling this story is getting bloody old, and we still have to tell that wanker of a doctor of yours." He smile at the downfallen look on his girls face. "Sorry, pet, but seems like we're gonna be telling the story from now 'til doomsday, with all the people in this place wantin' to know it."

Buffy's hand slightly brushes against the side of the bed, and he picks it up, squeezing it.

"Well" He starts his tale of everything that had happened in the last six years. Buffy helping out with stuff that had happened while he wasn't around, and he finally gets to the part where he woke up and heard Buffy screaming.

His family looks on in horror, as they talk. No one interrupts, they're too caught in it, mouths hanging wide.

"Oh, my dear. I had no idea." Anne looks over to Buffy with tears in her eyes. "You're an impressive young lady." She compliments, "Thank you." She hugs her son tighter to her breast, smoothing back the curls. She'd been holding onto him like that for at least fifteen minutes.

Taken aback, Buffy stands stunned for a few moments. "What did I do? Most of the time I was so horrible to him, I'm so totally, and absolutely ashamed of all of it."

"Don't you see?" The woman looks back to her, astonishment written on her features.

"See what?" Buffy asks back. She doesn't have a clue as to what the woman is talking about.

After she had heard the whole story, and pieced everything together, Anne had figured it out. "Well, what his whole purpose was, of course. What the delusions were ultimately leading him to. After I heard the story, I understood."

Buffy looks at the older lady as if she'd grown another head. "I just thought that he was there to annoy the hell out of me, and follow me around like a little lost puppy, making moon eyes at me." Buffy smiles, taking the sting out of the comment as she looks at the man sprawled on the bed, with his head still on the woman's chest.

"No, no my dear. He was there to show you that love could be unconditional. No matter how badly you treated him, he was always there. You made him want to be a better man. You were the catalyst of his redemption. My dear you made him want to succeed in all of his endeavors, and now you're returning that love." Anne laughs, smiling at Buffy's stunned face.

"Wasn't anything to do with redemption, mum. I had hurt the one person that I'd sworn I'd never..." His voice cracks. "Didn't want it to happen again. Broke me, it did. Couldn't handle the thought of ever doing it again.."

"Oh, William." Her soft hand slides down his cheek as she gaze with misty eyes into the blue eyed stare of her sons. "But it ultimately led you back to us, and to redemption."

Buffy is getting a little teary eyed herself, and breaks back into the conversation. She slowly draws in a deep breath, smiling at Mother and son."In the end, he was a good man. I seen him, and noticed all he has, and had been doing. He was always. . ." She doesn't have an inkling of what to say. "I don't know. I love him, that's true enough. It might have taken one hell of a journey, through some delusional place, with stuff that doesn't exist. I had to die twice; he had to get a chip stuck in his head, and a soul. He then had to ultimately die, and then we woke up in this place, but I do for some reason love the guy." She squeezes his hand, and smiles down at him.

As she smiles at him, he smiles back triumphantly. He knows in the end that he finally got the girl, went through hell in a hand basket, but he got her. He also knows that she loves him just as much as he does her.

"So you are saying that this whole delusional coma, was a Romeo and Juliet story, with monsters, demons, witches, and all of the stuff of Halloween?" The ever-inquisitive English accent of Wesley interrupts the sweet moment the couple was having. "How intrigueing."

"I recon that you could put it that way." Spike chuckles at the git, the dark haired prat had just made his way into the room proper. He looks up to his love, smiling. "We're Romeo and Juliet, Luv." He says, smirking slyly.

Buffy is laughing at Wesley's summation of the situation, and starts laughing harder at what Spike just said. Reaching up and wiping a few tears from her face, she sobers. "Yeah, the only problem is, which one is Romeo, and which one is Juliet?" She starts laughing again, at the look that crosses Spikes face.

"What I don't look like a Romeo?" His voice taking on a teasing tone, Spike nearly pulls her back onto him as he tugs on her hand.

"You seemed like the Juliet of the story. What with the making of the moon eyes, and following me around like a puppy." She pauses dramatically. "Although, you do have the right equipment to be Romeo." She quips, and starts to laugh again.

"Hey, you take that puppy comment back, Missy!" He yells, but is happy about the last comment. Still calling him a puppy, didn't sit well with him. Yep, he has the manly bits if not more so than that poncy Romeo.

"I was only telling the truth, and I'm not taking it back." She throws over her shoulder, as she had turned back to look over the two other men in the room.

Crossing his arms over his chest, and making a loud sigh. Spike leans back on the pillows behind him, Buffy giggles at the sound of him huffing.

"Aww, listen to the poor puppy." She teases.

"You sound like Dru, luv." He sneers back. "Are you gonna start talkin' 'bout pixies and namin' stars, too?"

She growls at him. "No, but if you don't watch it, there will be no more smoochies or any other contact of the good kind for quite awhile."

Spike's family looks on in amusement at the two of them, well Wesley, and Anne seem to be amused, but Quentin has a look of disbelief, and there's still some anger rolling around inside of him. He lays a hand on Buffy's shoulder again, and the blonde jumps, fist raised to start pounding the hell out him.

"UH, Mate?" Spike voice comes out in a low, menacing growl. "I think the lady warned you about touching her not five minutes ago. If I were you I'd be taking your mitt off of her. Or it won't be just her forcefully removing it."

"Now listen here young man, I am your father." Quentin sneers at Spike, the anger rising up another notch. "And this is inappropriate behavior. You shouldn't be kissing, or touching this young lady at all."

"Oh, god! It's the same Quentin." Buffy whispers, as she grabs the hand that's still on her shoulder, and twists it around into a painful position.

The man doesn't make a noise, but as she turns to face him, she can see the glassiness of his eyes, as if he were about to cry. "I did warn you," she says, as she drops the offending appendage, as if it were something disgusting.

Anne stands up, placing herself between her husband, and Williams girlfriend. "I do believe we need to go, dear." She smiles at Buffy, as she takes ahold of Quentins arm, and starts to lead him to the door. "Come along, Wesley." The younger man falls in beside of her, "It was very nice to meet you Buffy, I hope that we can get to know each other better."

"It was nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Osborne." Under her breath she adds, "but not so much your husband."

Spike and Buffy watch as his seriously weird family leaves his room.

(I'm evil, and no one guessed who his family would be, HE! Hope everyone enjoyed.)