Disclaimer: Joss owns the BTVS characters, I own Reagan, Arthur, Annette, and Christopher.

Author's note: *hugs* and *squishes* to the fab BTL for the great betaing. Thanks to Chanel 5, Tasha, CM, Marzbar and Spike_spetslayer for the fab reviews!
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Chapter 19: Comings and Goings

The vampire looked up at the Immortal with a smirk.

“You would willingly give up the love and respect of this woman, this demon? Are you not intimate with her on a regular basis?” The Immortal questioned as he eyed Spike.

Spike scoffed. “I don’t know where you get your information from mate. Not seen the bird in years. Then she shows up, interrupting my meal, carting me along to help get back the bit there,” said Spike glancing at Annette who was lying on a couch, deathly still. “Always wanted a taste of the bit, got a pure scent to her, you know?”

The Immortal chuckled at that. “So you are willing to give up the boy for the girl?”

“It’s a fair cop, you get the kid, I get the girl and the bitch demon gets what’s coming to her,” answered Spike.

“I would wish to believe you William,” the Immortal replied after a moment. “Unfortunately, I cannot in good faith complete this deal you propose. The girl is dead.”

Spike looked in Annette’s direction taking in her body lying still on the couch. She looked like she was sleeping. He should have figured out that she was dead sooner, the lack of resounding heartbeat now making itself known in his brain. He could now see how the colour of her cheeks was fading. He must have only just snapped her neck.

“I admire your dedication to Erixel’s unhappiness, you seem to have been pursuing that endeavour faithfully for many years.”

He was too late. Annette was dead. The Immortal’s words held no meaning for him anymore. Spike felt the Immortal’s hand on his back, leading him out of the mansion. Without question or protest, Spike let the man escort him out into the empty street.
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Reagan, who had been using a spell to see through Spike’s eyes back in England, began to cry as Spike passed Annette’s body on the couch.

She turned to face her friend who had teleported back only moments before, her tears apparent on her face.

“No!” gasped Buffy as she collapsed to the floor with her grief. “Annette!”

At the other end of the room, Anyanka sniffled before teleporting away, returning moments later through a portal, Annette’s lifeless body cradled in her arms.
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The conspirators stood solemnly around the little family cemetery outside of the home that Christopher had lived so much of his short life in. Next to the graves of her mother, sister and father, Buffy buried Annette. Another member of her family laid to rest.

Buffy looked up through her tears to see Spike holding Christopher in his arms possessively. As much as he was loathed to admit it, Buffy knew that the evil vampire was in pain. He had liked or at least respected Annette and now he knew that Christopher would have to be hidden again.

The only one of their number that didn’t attend Annette’s funeral was Anyanka. Buffy really couldn’t blame her. A Vengeance Demon’s life revolved around the potential of life taking. Annette’s death, to Anyanka must have seemed just another occurrence. Hell, Anya had warned Buffy about getting too attached to the child.

Yet life was about attachments.

Reagan put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder as the Vicar said the last words over Annette’s cold body. The Vicar was acting judgmental to all of them. He didn’t know the circumstances of Annette’s death but he had figured out that the whole situation had been a lie. Buffy certainly wasn’t an invalid and it looked like Mr. Blood was in fact alive. She just wanted the insipid man to leave them alone in their grief.

Buffy wondered if the Immortal would leave them alone for a while: if she and Christopher would be left alone for a while. With a disproving look, the Vicar left the gravesite. Slowly, Reagan led Christopher and Spike back into the house. Alone in the mist Buffy knelt at the grave ready at last to give Annette the farewell she deserved.

“Oh Annette,” began Buffy. “I’m so sorry! You didn’t deserve this! I keep thinking that this is all my fault! If I hadn’t taken you from the orphanage...If I hadn’t taken off my pendant...If I hadn’t kept Christopher...none of this would have happened. You could have had a great life with children of your own, with friends and family that didn’t dimension hop.” Buffy wiped away a tear before continuing on.

“I’m going to miss you, Christopher will too. I don’t know what we will do without you. You held our lives together you know. The Vicar thinks badly of us all, for lying to the whole village, for not going to church, he doesn't know the truth. The Immortal will pay for this Annette. I won’t let him get away with this.”

Buffy stood up determined to seek revenge on what the Immortal had done.
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D’Hoffryn stood shaking his head at her and Buffy couldn‘t believe it.

“Why not? You know what he did! You knew Annette! How can you deny me a wish?” she cried.

“You know the rules Erixel. This thing for which you wish vengeance was not done to you. Annette was an innocent bystander and she is dead. She cannot have her vengeance wish granted.”

“Is there no way I can...” Buffy trailed off.

“You know the rules Erixel,” stated D’Hoffryn once more. “Follow them.” Buffy stood up from her kneeling position on D’Hoffryn’s audience chamber floor and nodded.
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Buffy returned to her childhood home to see Spike and Christopher playing on the floor, Reagan looking on with a smile and a stake at the ready. The trio looked up at her entrance.

“Did D’Hoffryn grant your wish?” asked Reagan.

Buffy shook her head sadly. “I have to follow the rules,” she muttered, sitting down on the couch beside Reagan.

“So?” started Reagan. “Follow the rules. I wish that the Immortal would experience the pain he caused Annette before she died once a day every day for the rest of his immortal life,” said Regan with an evil smile on her face.

Buffy shifted into demonic guise. “Wish granted,” said the demon before slipping back into human face once more. “Good wish Reagan.”

“Thank you,” said Reagan. “It doesn’t make me feel better though.”

“Papa? Make a wish?” asked Christopher.

Spike looked up from his son’s face to that of the boy’s mother and shook his head. “No. I won’t be using your powers Buffy. Not ever again.”

“Got you all healed up from your last torture session with your beloved Drusilla didn’t it?” said Buffy bitterly.

“Please don’t fight in front of Christopher,” begged Reagan but neither one listened.

“You are just lucky she hasn’t figured out that I’m not there. The moment she calls to me I’m gone, whether you send me back the way you took me or if I have to take a boat back to Austria. I never asked to be taken away or to be healed.”

“No, you wished it,” observed Buffy.

“You bloody tricked me is what you did!” he bellowed.

“I did no such thing! And you know it!”

Reagan got up off the couch and picked up Christopher, taking him out of the room with her, Spike watching them go before turning back to the mother of his child.

“Three years! Three years and not a bloody word about anything. He’s mine too you know! I would have done anything to see him!”

Buffy‘s eyes widened, thought swirling in her mind. “Is that why you came to help with Annette? To see Christopher? Didn’t you care about her at all?” asked Buffy her voice wavering.

Spike stood up from the floor suddenly and advanced on her seated position. “Bloody hell of course I did. I liked the bit! Seeing the boy was just another incentive.”

Buffy scoffed tearing her eyes away from his. “Well you’ve seen Christopher, shouldn’t you be off returning to Drusilla and the rest of them? Your vampire family is much more important than us. Go!” Buffy stood up from the couch with every intention of leaving the room.

She couldn’t bear to be in his sight anymore.

Spike reached out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” he yelled.

“Oh it’s an old argument Spike! We’re at an impasse. We both know it. You won’t leave Drusilla and I won’t put Christopher in danger. The moment you walk out of this house, Christopher and I, you won’t be able to find us. It‘s almost enough for me to start hating you.”

Spike looked back at her in shock but Buffy continued on, her rage feeling better than the sorrow she felt at her maid‘s death.

“Maybe I should move on, take up with some nice demon boy, someone who could actually be a good father to Christopher? I wonder what you’d do then?”

“Tear off the git’s head, is what I’d do,” he muttered, still holding her arm, his grip becoming tighter as time passed. “You are mine Buffy.”

Buffy shook her head in disbelief. Then with a turn and tilt of her head she exposed her neck to him.

“Make it official then,” she said looking directly into his blue eyes.

Spike let go of her arm in a flash. His eyes bored into the skin on her neck. There were still the scars from his previous bites. He could smell the tears she had yet to shed, for Annette, for the injustice of it all. Still he couldn’t do it.

She saw his hesitation and withdrew her offered flesh. “That’s what I thought” she said softly, her voice equally as soft as she left the room. “At least say good bye to your son before you go.”
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Spike followed his nose to Christopher, playing with his toys in his room, his Aunt Reagan watching over him. Noticing Spike’s entrance, Reagan got out that stake she carried about with her.

“You won’t need that pet,” said the vampire, advancing on his son.

“Oh no? Not going to break Christopher’s heart, like you did Buffy’s?”

“She broke mine,” Spike replied coolly.

“Yes she did, seven years ago. Christopher hasn’t done any such thing.”

Spike crouched down beside the playing toddler and ruffled the boy’s curly blond locks.

“Papa?” asked Christopher, his blue eyes shining hopefully.

“It’s time for me to go bite size.”

“Why?” asked the child his eyes wide.

Spike really didn’t have an answer for the that one. “Just do, I suppose.”

“Will you come to visit?” asked Christopher.

“Someday, if your Mum agrees to it.”

Christopher nodded. He was used to having to wait until Mummy said it was ok to do things. Carefully Christopher wrapped his arms around his vampire father and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Spike arms snaked around his son’s body and returned the hug.

From across the room Reagan let a tear fall from her cheek, clutching the stake in her hand.
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Holding Christopher’s hand Buffy led her child into Arashamahar. She really hadn’t a clue how else to do this. There was nowhere on earth was safe for either of them. It was a last resort: she hadn’t wanted Christopher growing up in a demon dimension but she was left with no other options. She was really hoping that D’Hoffryn had some sort of day care provider in mind.
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Fresh from a particularly successful day of vengeance Buffy materialised into D’Hoffryn’s audience chamber covered in blood and exhausted. All she wanted to do was have a bath and eat dinner. But the sight of what was going on in the audience chamber made her cringe.

“Christopher William! What the bloody hell are you doing?”

The boy in question poked his eight year old head out from behind D’Hoffryn’s throne, his hands covered in a sticky substance and his hair sticking up in odd directions .

“Mum! You’re ruining it!” protested Christopher.

“Ruining what pray tell?” she asked, her hands on her hips, her foot tapping.

“D’Hoffryn’s project,” explained the boy.

“And just what project is that?” asked his mother.

“It’s a new game! He’s hoping that it will make Krevlin stop juggling body parts! You know he asked me to lend him my hand yesterday? As if it would just reattach!”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “It’s time for dinner Christopher, wipe your hands off and let’s get going. Where is D’Hoffryn anyway?” Buffy asked looking around the room.

“He went to deal with a spy, again. Honestly mum, when will the Immortal leave me alone?”

“I don’t know Christopher, I really don’t know.”
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“I won’t go!” protested the eleven year old boy with bluer than blue eyes.

The others in the room looked at him sympathetically. They were sitting in the Price’s sitting room, Arthur, Reagan, Buffy, ten year old Wesley, eight year old Amelia, Christopher and the baby of the Price family, six year old Annette.

“Christopher, we have been over this, you can’t live in Arashamahar your whole life, you aren’t a demon, you are human, just like Wesley and Amelia and Annette. To get by in this world you need to go to school. I had to when I was your age,” said Buffy. “And so did your father.”

“Well he isn’t here is he?” snapped Christopher. “He’s off with Drusilla somewhere, feasting on the general populace. Why can’t I be a demon or a vampire?”

“Because then we’d have to stake you,” said Amelia with a smirk.

“Amelia Elizabeth!” chastised Reagan.

“Your uncle Arthur has got you a very nice place at Eton,” continued Buffy. “Both he and your father went there.”

Christopher crossed his arms and pouted.
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tbc...