15



Spike sprawled on an old chaise longue, his hands resting behind his head.

Things were good.

He had his family around him, even Angel’s very existence wasn’t aggravating him at the moment, and he had a long dormant circulatory system that was full of warm, fresh Slayer blood and the music to his ears were the screams echoing through the mansion from the soldier they had kidnapped that morning.

His life was good.

He was supposed to be keeping an eye out, in case any of Buffy’s friends decided to show up sooner rather than later and interrupt the Poof’s bout of inhumane interrogation.

Angel was currently in the process of torturing the poor bloke to see what he’d dish about his branch of the government and Drusilla was annoying both of them with her unintelligible ramblings about blue fish and tinkertoys. Spike had been happy to leave them to it; Dru’s rambling was really grating on his nerves when she kept flashing him a smile that led him to believe that she knew more than she was sharing. In the century he’d spent at her side, he had learnt the hard way that that particular smile would never lead to any good for him. The last time she’d smiled like that, he’d ended up strung to rafters by his ankles wearing just his skivvies, while she paraded her nude body below him with another demon. So he kept himself well away, leaving Angel to question the poor lad.

So far they’d discovered that it was something to do with the local college, and that the boy was on some kind of drugs for Dru had insisted his blood packed quite a punch. This meant that Angel had also had a taste, just to make sure that Dru wasn’t dreaming after living off of demon and animal blood for so long.

Spike had walked away after that, not wanting to disturb the torture session at all. His hunger had been sated from the moment they had secured the soldier to the iron manacles that hung from the walls of the mansion’s many unused rooms. Buffy had practically pounced upon him when he relieved himself of the soldier, dragging him off to their room to satisfy her desires while Angel and Dru used Agent Finn to sate theirs.

He sat up quickly, his sensitive hearing detecting voices drawing nearer and nearer. Slipping through the building, he stood back to admire Angel’s handiwork, the awkward angles of the limp limbs and the thin trails of blood accentuating the dull shine of bruises, before warning them of the Scoobies arrival and leaving to greet their visitors before Buffy could.

He wasn’t particularly looking forward to explaining Buffy’s appearance or the soldiers, and hoped that he wouldn’t have to. It wasn’t often that their coupling was so brutal and violent, yet when it was, Buffy usually came away looking like she’d gone ten rounds in a ring with a thousand pound chirago demon. Her body was mottled with bruises and her neck was a bloodied mess of bites and welts when he had left her to shower in peace half an hour before.

He hoped she’d bought a jumper to cover it all on her shopping spree, instead of bearing all to her mother and watcher. He didn’t fancy a redwood through the ribs.

“Spike.” Joyce greeted with a smile. “May we?” She was answered by Spike stepping back inviting them into the mansion. Giles frowned at the gesture. Being invited into a vampire’s home was something he had never bothered about. They were not people. Even when Angel had had his own apartment, it was not by invite that he had entered.

Brushing away the temporary discomfort, he made his way into the dimly lit foyer, following the blonde master vampire through a labyrinth of hallways to the back of the building where the soldier sat on a comfortable chair, his legs and arms folded in mimicry of Buddha.

Spike had to give praise to the grand poof. It looked good. Better than good, it looked believable.

“Is he okay?” Joyce whispered softly, not wanting to disturb the soldier while he was in deep thought. His head was bowed and he sat immensely still.

“He’s fine.” Spike assured them, suppressing his desire to laugh aloud. “Just thinking I suppose.”

“And where is everyone else?” Giles broke in, “Didn’t Buffy want to keep an eye on him in case he tried to escape?”

“She’s upstairs.” Spike informed him, keeping an eye on Finn in case he decided to communicate with anyone. “Where’s the kids?”

“The children, as you so call them, are joining us later. They have other commitments. May I point out that Buffy is also of the same age as these ‘kids’.” Giles retorted with a hint of a smile gracing his weathered face.

“You’d be wrong there mate. She ain’t got an age. She just is.” Spike smirked, watching the watcher in amusement as he worked out the anvil sized hint that Spike had dropped for him.

“She actually accepted that?” Giles spoke slowly, cold dread settling into his bones as realisation finally caught up with him. His Slayer was no more. She had chosen death over life and passed the torch to Faith. She no longer bowed down to moral obligations and pressures. She had simply chosen to return to Sunnydale and help out her successor because she wanted to. To see her mother, to let her friends know that she was alive and well. She hadn’t done it because it was her duty as a Slayer to return to her watcher and to protect the world, for that had never quite been Buffy Summers’ mission in life. All this time, he had been hard on her, pushing her to perform her sacred duty and she had kept quiet when she could have just told him the truth.

“I welcomed it.” Buffy’s voice floated in from the darkened hallway. Turning to see her, Giles couldn’t help but smile ridiculously at the young woman that stood before him.

“I’m so sorry Buffy.” He said softly, his arms dangling awkwardly at his sides until Buffy rushed at him, throwing her arms around him and squeezing him tightly, pinning his in place with her strength.

“God, I missed you Giles.”

“I missed you too Buffy.” He assured her softly, resting his cheek on the top of her hair.

“I love you Giles.” She whispered, pulling away to look him in the eye. Stepping back, he smiled gently, choosing to keep silent about the obvious marks that adorned her throat, arms and chest, displayed proudly by the simple black strap top Buffy had chosen to wear.

“And I you my dear. Now what have you found out?” He swept his hand towards Riley with a frown.

Same old Giles, Buffy couldn’t help but smile fondly. What Spike had said was so simple, yet he’d laid it out so that Giles couldn’t help but understand how different she was. She wasn’t dead. She was just no longer alive. She had moved past that now. And now it was straight back to business. Giles hadn’t changed in the past year she was glad to see.

“He thought we were the vampire family that had been living at the old factory.” Angel spoke, entering the room with Drusilla tagging along behind him.

“Apparently, there’s been a powerful young family masquerading as Aurelians in there. They’ve been causing a bit of trouble for everyone, killing in daylight, generally wreaking havoc.” Giles informed them with a frown.

“Just like William then really.” Angel added with a sneer in Spike’s direction.

“Sod off,” Spike grumbled good-naturedly, “Not everyone takes their family history so seriously.”

“Not everyone gets their families chased out of entire countries by angry mobs.” Angel shot back with a snarl.

“Can we please concentrate on the matter at hand?” Giles demanded, silencing the two master vampires. “We’ve had numerous run-ins with this young family, and not come away from these meetings at all well. In fact, Faith was incapacitated for days after.”

“Young? Exactly how young are they?” Spike asked, his head cocked in Angel’s direction, knowing that everyone was thinking the same thing.

“It’s pretty obvious that it was Angelus.” Buffy chuckled humourlessly, “So all we gotta do is stake them, blow up the government facilities that are apparently at the college and we’re done. It’s not like it’s an apocalypse, we can do that tomorrow and we’re done. Time to party me thinks.”

“Just like that?” Joyce couldn’t help but ask. “Those vampires that hurt Faith were strong, you can’t believe it’s a simple case of walking in and staking them?”

“Me and Faith can do it.” Buffy said firmly, and the topic was dropped for more pressing matters. Such as the soldier that hadn’t moved in half an hour and the fact that by nightfall, they would probably be under attack all over again.

Having assured everyone that the soldier was okay, the group moved into another room to discuss plans and options for the evening, Angel and Spike prowling the room, listening for any sign of movement, from Riley or otherwise. It wouldn’t look good on Buffy if he fell and couldn’t get himself back on the chair due to him broken limbs. Even if she had no idea that his arms and legs had been snapped, it would still be Buffy that had to deal with the consequences that the humans were sure to try to impose.

Ignoring the skulking vampires, Giles was happy to align his two Slayers to vanquish the vampires at the factory now that he was fully aware of what Buffy was capable of. Her Slayer and vampire attributes would surely give them the power they needed to turn this town around and possibly give Faith the boost she needed to stop doubting her Slayer skills. Something he had been certain would never happen when they first commenced training, after all the gossip Willow and Xander had to share of the infamous ‘Buffy Summers’ the poor girl had shoved her insecurities so far down inside that it had taken over a month for him to work them out of her, all of her rage and determination had simply deserted her until all that was left was the shell of a girl who had since learnt to make it on her own, whether or not her Slayer status was permanent as she so often doubted, she would be able to say that she was able to stand her own, right there next to Buffy. The plan was quite ingenious if he did say so himself and the watcher in him beamed at the prospect of jotting it all down in his diaries that night.

“Kiddies are here.” Spike called across the room from where he lounged against the door frame, and sure enough, Faith practically skipped into the room mere seconds later, followed by Xander, Anya Willow and a girl Buffy had never met before.

Quirking his eyebrow at the mingled scents that followed the children before him, Spike grinned at Angel, knowing that the other vamp would also be able to tell. He was eager to see if Buffy could recognise what she could smell as well, but by the look on her face, she had no clue as to what the subtle differences in each body scent were.

“Hey, Buffy, I want you to meet Tara.” Willow was saying when Spike began to pay attention. “Tara, this is Buffy. And that’s Spike, her boyfriend, Angel, um, her um, ex-boyfriend, and his girlfriend Drusilla.” The petite redhead flushed with embarrassment as she pointed them out. “Buffy, this is my girlfriend.”

“I know, Will.” Buffy smiled reassuringly, ignoring the huge grin that Spike was sporting. Just because she could use her vampiric traits as well as he could, didn’t mean she was going to make it obvious.

“You know?” Willow giggled nervously, “Who told you?”

“I could just tell. I think it’s great.” Buffy replied, tapping her nose with a smile and extending her hand to Tara to greet her.

Her day just kept getting weirder and weirder, she didn’t even know what had happened to Oz and here was Willow, batting for the other team, yet funnily enough, there was something deep down inside of her that welcomed all these changes in her friends.

If she couldn’t be okay with their changes, how could she expect them to accept hers?

TBC..
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