Giles called mid-morning, and asked her to call a Scooby meeting in order to unearth some information regarding some demons of unknown origin who were rumored to be interested in setting up a Hellmouth worshipping organization. So Buffy called the gang and they met on Xander’s lunchbreak at a greasy spoon he’d discovered near his worksite.

“So, Buffster, heard from Riley lately?” The familiar pang of guilt made an appearance as she looked at the faces of her friends.

“Yeah, just yesterday. He’s playing farmer at his parents’ house. He’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

“Oooh! I wonder if he gets to drive one of those big tractors. Did he say Buffy?” Xander’s eyes were bright at the thought of heavy machinery.

“Um…I’m not sure. He mentioned something about corn, though…”

“Bet you can’t wait for him to get back, huh Buffy?” Willow asked with a big grin on her face. “You’ll run into each other’s arms and there’ll be smoochies and touches, and you’ll go off to…” the rambling red-head stopped when she saw the group staring at her.
“Okay, shutting up now, TMI, huh?”

“Well, it’s finally nice to see someone other than me speaking their mind about sex,” Anya jumped in. That got a laugh from her friends, but the little pang of guilt was now clawing around her insides. She couldn’t possibly tell her friends she was cheating on him, and with whom. They’d whisk her away to the funny farm and put her in a straitjacket. She didn’t think she was ashamed of Spike, but as she looked at the familiar faces of her friends, she knew there would be mass disapproval and scoldings. It wouldn’t change her mind about breaking up with Riley, but could she go public with Spike?

They made small talk and ordered their lunches, then Buffy pulled herself together and got down to the topic of their meeting. The Scoobies roared with laughter when they heard about the latest threat.

“Worshipping the Hellmouth?” crowed Xander. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Unless they want to open it or throw virgins into it. Then that would make it a bad thing.”

Even though she was rather new to the group, Buffy appreciated Tara’s calm demeanor, and she asked the kinds of questions that helped them focus. Giles’ information had been sketchy, so Buffy didn’t have very many answers. She absently wondered if Spike knew anything about this and thought about enlisting his help.

They finally made a rudimentary plan, which consisted of Buffy and Xander going to Willy’s to see if they could beat some info out of the slimy little pub owner. Xander was to pick her up in his new Xandermobile in case they needed to make a fast getaway. Later that night, when they pulled up to the bar, it looked like there was a fight in progress, with 3 large, porcupine-y demons beating on some poor schlub.

“Oh man,” Xander commented, “that guy’s really getting the smackdown. Wonder what he did to piss those spiny demons off?” Just then, one of the demons moved and a flash of platinum and black on the ground revealed the victim.

“And it’s Spike! How great is that!” Xander laughed, but slammed on the brakes when his friend threw open the door. “Buffy? What the hell are you doing?”

The Slayer didn’t hear him as she leapt into the fray. One of the porcupines was about to bash Spike’s skull in with a metal pipe, and she wrenched it away from him and bashed it into his head instead. He went down with an “oomph” and she turned to the others. They were both coming toward her, arms outstretched, and then one stumbled and fell to the ground. Spike had managed to grab its ankle and Buffy wasted no time in launching the pipe at the torso of the last standing demon. It skewered him through, and he crumpled over, clutching at the offending object protruding from his chest. Giving one last gasp, he too, met his maker, and the remaining spiny guy scrambled to his feet and tried to make a getaway, but Buffy would not be denied. She kicked and punched until it was not moving, and then she fell to her feet and tried to assess Spike’s injuries. He was bruised and bloody, but appeared to be in one piece. However, one of his legs was bent funny, and he was lying in a large pool of blood.

Buffy called to Xander, who had exited his car and was watching in bewilderment.

“Xander! Get Spike in the car! I’m going to get some blood for him inside!”

“But, Buffy, why the hell are we helping Spike?”

“I don’t have time to explain now!” she practically yelled, pulling Spike by the lapels of his duster towards the car. “Just help, me, please!”

“Okay, okay. Sheesh.” He opened the back door of the sedan and lifted Spike into it, the vampire’s leg dangling as if by a thread. He went around to the other side to pull Spike all the way in, and had to shudder at the damage he saw. They must have used the pipe to beat his leg, breaking it and bringing him down, then they clipped his ear. The bleeding was from his head behind the ear, and the leg wound. He shut both doors and hopped in the driver’s seat, starting the engine and hoping Buffy wouldn’t be long.

Inside the bar, Buffy had Willy by the lapels of his loud Hawaiian print shirt. He’d already given her the 10 packets of human blood she’d demanded, and she was now pressing him for the information she had originally come here for.

“Geez, Slayer, I don’t know nuthin’. No one tells me anything on account of they think I’m gonna snitch to you when you come around. Kinda like now.”

“Listen Willy. I’m in a bit of a hurry here. So I’ll just beat your head on the bar once really hard instead of several times softly until you tell me what I want to hear.” She moved her hands to either side of his head and he surrendered.

“Okay! Stop already!” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “They’re Gorack demons, and they’re building a church in the basement of the high school. You know, the one you blew up. They got pews and an altar and everything. They pray for the Hellmouth to open and deliver them from humans.”

“Gorack demons?” she clarified. Willy nodded and she released him, picking up the sack full of blood bags, and turning to leave.

“Hey, Slayer,” he called, “how’s about some payment for services and good rendered?”

Buffy grabbed his shirt in her fist and pulled him close. “I didn’t break your nose this time, did I?” With that she dropped her hand and hurried out the door to her injured vampire.

Xander had the car running and much to his surprise, she hopped into the back with Spike instead of the passenger side.

“Get us to Mom’s house, and fast,” she said to Xander, before turning to Spike. She stroked his face and tried to speak with him.

“Spike? Are you with us?”

One bloodshot eye cracked open and he smiled. “Hey, luv. Bloody good timing you had there. Thought I was a goner for sure that time.”

“What did you do to piss those guys off?”

“Fought with you,” he choked out, then hacked up some blood in a coughing fit.

“Okay, just rest and we’ll get you fixed up soon.” She turned to face the front and folded her hands on the headrest behind Xander, pleased to see that they were only a few blocks from Revello Drive.

“Buffy?” Xander asked. “Can you explain now why we’re taking Captain Peroxide to your house, after you rescued him from a beating he got because he was probably trying to cheat them at pool?”

“He saved my life last night,” she explained bluntly. “Now I’m saving his.”

“That’s it?” When there was nothing but silence behind him, he pushed on. “And exactly why did your life need saving last night?”

Buffy sighed and told the story. “I was patrolling and got hit badly, which wasn’t the problem; it was my bleeding that attracted a gang of vamps. Spike helped dust them. And for that he got beat up tonight. So here we are.”

“Why didn’t you call us if you were patrolling?”

“It’s always slow after a big bad goes down, you know that. And it seems like you’re all busy with dates and stuff.” He tried to interrupt, but she shushed him. “No, it’s okay. You guys all deserve to have some together time, and I can usually handle patrol by myself.”

“But the question remains why Spike saved you instead of laughing while you went down.”

Buffy looked up and was relieved to see her mother’s house in the headlights. “Guess you’ll have to ask him. Will you help me get him inside?”

Xander turned the engine off and sighed. “Might as well. We’ve come this far, but as soon as he’s better he’s gonna be scrubbing his blood and guts off of my upholstery!” Buffy ignored his comment and they got on either side of him, wrapping his arms around their shoulders, and they got him inside the house.

“You never revoked his invite?” Xander asked, incredulous, and Buffy just shrugged her shoulders. She herself never knew why she hadn’t had it done, and couldn’t explain it to anyone else. They settled the unconscious vampire on the couch and she asked her friend to go back and get the blood from his car. She was surprised when he did it without making any more comments, but her thoughts were disrupted when her mother came down the stairs in her bathrobe.

“Buffy? What’s going on? Did I hear Xander?” when she turned the corner into the living room she gasped. “Is that Spike?” What happened to him?”

“He got ambushed by some demons who didn’t want to play fair,” she replied, easing Spike’s duster from his unmoving body. “Is it okay that we brought him here? I didn’t want anyone coming after him in his crypt, and I thought we could take care of him here.”

“It’s fine, honey. What can I do?”

Buffy sent her mom for some first aid supplies, and set her to work cleaning his wounds while she warmed up two bags of blood that Xander brought in. She also had him help her set Spike’s broken leg, and then woke him enough to drink his blood, after which he promptly passed out again.

“I still don’t know why you’re doing this, Buff.”

“And I already told you I’m paying him back. Can you please just drop it now?” Xander stared at her, as if he was trying to read her mind, then he shrugged and stepped towards the front door.

“I guess I just don’t get you sometimes, but I usually trust you. I hope this doesn’t come back to bite you on the ass.” Saying his piece, he left the house, leaving Buffy to answer her mother’s questions.

They moved into the kitchen to let Spike rest, and Joyce made up some hot cocoa. Buffy told her about patrolling with Spike and getting to know him, and how he’d helped her the night before. Joyce sat quietly and listened, and when Buffy finished, she looked at her daughter intently before speaking.

“Is your new friendship with Spike the reason you’ve been avoiding Riley’s phone calls? One of which, in fact, came tonight. He’ll be home in a few days.”

Buffy recoiled in shock from her comment. “I…I haven’t been avoiding him. It’s just timing.”

“Please don’t lie to me, Buffy. If I can sit here and listen to you talk about almost getting killed, then I deserve the truth about this.”

Buffy wrapped her hands around the body of her mug of hot cocoa, and let the warmth seep through. “How did you know?” she asked, sighing in resignation.

“After two years of listening to you come in late from patrols, I can tell that you’ve been coming in later, and going out every night, which just started a few days ago. At about the same time I had to start taking messages from Riley.” She gestured to the other room. “And now I have a badly injured vampire on my couch. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“It’s not like I planned it,” Buffy sulked a little. “It just kind of happened. We were flirting, then ‘bang!’” She looked at her mom’s expression and backpedaled. “Not that there was a literal ‘bang,’ it was more like the…” she trailed off when her mother’s hand covered hers.

“I don’t need to know the details, sweetie. But I do think we need to talk about why you’re getting involved with Spike when I assume Riley is still your boyfriend, or at least he thinks he is.”

Buffy drank some hot cocoa, sighed, and tried to clarify her thoughts. “I can’t break up with him over the phone. That’s just…cliché and cruel.”

“But you are going to break things off with him? When he gets back?” Joyce queried.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I realized that if I was capable of being with Spike then there was something missing with Riley.” Buffy wasn’t prepared for the hurt that was creeping into her heart, and tears swam in her eyes.

“Oh honey, what’s wrong?” Joyce scooted closer to her daughter and gathered her up in her arms.

“I really wanted things to work out with Riley, you know?” she sobbed, hugging her mother closer. “And now I’ve turned into this slut, sleeping with another guy while my boyfriend’s halfway across the country!”

“Hey now, Buffy, don’t say that,” Joyce soothed, stroking Buffy’s hair. “You’re young and trying to find love, and going to school, and living away from home. You’re becoming an adult and figuring out what you want out of life besides slaying. If you and Riley were engaged or married, then what you are doing would be very wrong.” She pulled away from Buffy and cupped her chin with her hand. “It isn’t right, though, to be with Spike until you break up with Riley. Do you think you and he can keep it platonic until Riley gets back?”

“I suppose so. It’s not like we ever talk about this stuff.”

“Well, you should. If you intend to keep seeing Spike you’re going to need to be able to communicate with him. Especially considering that you seemed to have gone from being enemies to lovers fairly quick.” Buffy’s face reddened when she heard her mother refer to her and Spike as lovers. She couldn’t believe they were even having this talk.

“I’m going to check on him and go to bed. Are you really okay with him being here?”

“It’s fine, honey. Go on; I’ll clean up in here.” Buffy got up to leave the room, but her mother called to her one last time. “Buffy? It was really nice to talk with you.”

“I know,” she replied, and went to see how Spike was doing.

He was still out, but they’d done all they could for now, so she covered him with the blanket from the back of the couch, made sure the window curtains were shut tight, and placed a kiss on his forehead.

“You’re safe now,” she whispered. “Just get better and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Joyce heard Buffy trudge up the stairs and listened to the sounds of her nightly rituals. She finished cleaning the kitchen and went to see her unlikely visitor. His head was turned from where it had been and she suspected he wasn’t quite asleep.

“Spike? I know you’re awake.”

“Can’t fool you one bit, can I Joyce?” Spike opened his eyes slowly, as if it hurt to do so, and gave her a watery smirk. She smiled back, and placed a hand on his forehead in the universal sign of a mother soothing her sick child.

“How are you feeling?”

“A bit like 3 Dralosh demons were beatin’ the crap out of me.”

“Is it because you saved Buffy?”

“It’s been going on a bit longer than that. Probably goes all the way back to when I made that first truce with Buffy. Turning on your sire is frowned upon in the demon community, and I had the balls to defy him. Then after the Initiative scrambled my brain and I started helping the white hats every so often, it was made clear to me that I was no longer welcome in their circles.”

She stroked her hand on his head, mussing his hair and petting him.

“Well I, for one, am glad you were there for her. Anytime she comes home at night is a reason to give thanks, and I should extend that to you, too. So thank you for saving my daughter, Spike.”

Spike grunted something that sounded like, “You’re welcome.”

“Is there anything more I can do for you?”

“I’m alright. I do appreciate you letting me stay and mend up here.”

“Did you hear everything?”

“I did.”

“And I would ask you, then, what your intentions are toward my daughter.” The comforting hand was removed and arms were crossed.

“I enjoy her company. She’s a hell of a girl Joyce. Gives the Slayer gig her all, making the world safe for puppies and Christmas and all that. She puts out this light, and one can’t help but be attracted to that, like…” he left off when he realized he was getting poetic. But Joyce had heard enough.

“Can I trust you to keep your hands off of her until she breaks up with Riley?”

“If you’re gonna threaten to hit me with an axe, I’d best say ‘yes,’” he chuckled.

“Just so we’re clear,” she added, grasping his hand lightly, as if sealing the deal.

“Crystal,” he responded, squeezing back.

“Get some rest, and we’ll try to be quiet in the morning. You’re free to stay as long as you need to, alright?”

“You’re a gem of a lady, Joyce. Just like your daughter.”

“Then you’d better stay on my good side, hadn’t you?”

That elicited another chuckle and she bade him goodnight as she made sure the front door was locked and turned off the lights. Life as a Slayer’s mother was certainly never boring, and she was relieved to see her daughter safely tucked in for the night, silently thanking the vampire again for that blessing.